


The Sky is Falling

by Arnica



Series: Blocking your own shot [10]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-13
Updated: 2014-05-01
Packaged: 2018-01-15 14:12:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 33,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1307734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arnica/pseuds/Arnica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s an infiltration cell lying dormant in the suburbs of Cardiff and it’s just another frightening sign in the unfortunate trend towards curving in the vital time-lines around Earth. Something is shoving humanity headfirst into a dangerous series of convergence and Jack is left scrambling for a reason other than his own presence for the change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Author's note: Hi Guys. Updates on Thursdays. I've gone back to shorter chapters for 2-3k words because I think they pace better. The sun is back and so is my brain so I'm writing at a pretty good clip and have about eight chapters of backlog to give me room to write more! The Sky is Falling begins in the same week as A Sorta Fairytale and Jack and Indy's big day out. If you've never read Jack and Indy's big day out (don't tell mummy about the weevil) then I'm not surprised. My depression hit me hard and early last year and as far as I can tell the only place it went up was my Dreamwidth. I've added it to AO3 as of today to keep the numbering right. I suggest reading it. It's a one shot slice of non-Torchwood the same way Everything was Beautiful is. It's cute and while you can go right from Fairytale to Falling without it, I don't recommend it.

 

 

They make it so close to actually getting the entire week off. Ianto opens his eyes with resignation but not much actual surprise when Jack comes into the bedroom at, according to the blurred green numbers he’s glaring at, a quarter to four in the morning on what’s supposed to be their last day off.

“ _Really_?” Jack shrugs and Ianto lets himself indulge in one long sigh before pushing up, trying to ignore Cheyenne’s smug little snicker as she yanks the blankets closer over her head. “Alright, I’m up.”

“You too.” Ianto pauses on his way to the loo and looks curiously over his shoulder at where Jack’s stopped at the foot of the bed and tugged the blankets out of Cheyenne’s groping reach. “Come on, coppers have called us in on two bodies in intensive care, one body dead on arrival, and one witness without a scratch who didn’t see a thing. I’m going to need tech, med, and backup on scene with me. That leaves you running the Hub.”

“Son of a bitch. One of those bodies on the ground had better be blue with three fucking eyes when you guys get there.” Cheyenne sits up cross-legged and scrubs her hair back out of her face with a groan. “Should we bring the baby?”

“Not sure how long this will take. I’ll go get his bag ready, you should probably call and wake up your sister, Ianto.”

Ianto hates waking up Rhiannon for work because as soon as he does, it doesn’t matter if he gets a chance to call and check in on Indy one time or twenty, she no longer believes Ianto’s okay until she sees him again. He grabs the phone from the bedside table and dials on his way across the room.

Rhiannon picks up on the second ring with a huff.

“I thought terrorism took a bloody holiday in June?”

“No, but we pretend it does for a week without telling anyone. Look, I’m sorry but…”

“Oh my god, _yes_! Why do you even wake me up to ask? You know the answer is yes and you have a key to the bloody house, just come in and put him in the pack and play!” She’s starting in on a tear, the kind that says she and Johnny might have put in a late night, but she stops cold when he flushes the toilet. “Damn it! I have told you a _million_ times not to take me into the bloody toilet with you! It’s like you’re trying to piss me off today and the sun isn’t even up! I’m hanging up, just come in.” Her phone hits the receiver with a clatter and he thumbs his off, dropping it in the basket next to the sink as he washes his hands. Across the bathroom Cheyenne’s already in the shower and mornings like this, he’s glad their shower is big enough that he can just duck under the other shower heads instead of being stuck behind her, trying to find some sad stray droplets of water that her hair doesn’t immediately soak up. He’s in and out of the shower and already dressed by the time Cheyenne comes running out of the loo, water streaming behind her as she tries to keep her hair contained in the towel slipping off her head.

“I hate Gwen and her honeymoon right now.” She slings herself down on the bench facing the smaller dressing mirror, yanking the towel roughly off her head and huffing as her hair falls down in thick clumps. “I suppose it was nice while it lasted though.”

“That’s what I keep telling myself.” She’s yanking her hair into two rough sections and he takes one side, twisting it into a thick rope while she does the same opposite him before pulling on his jacket. “I’m going to go make sure everything’s ready.”

It occurs to Ianto that’s some part of him has secretly been expecting a week without alien interruption to have made them slow and soft somehow. Instead they’re just as fast as they ever are and the three of them manage to hit the front door within moments of each other, holsters on, keys in hand, and diaper bag packed. He settles Indy into his car, watching as Jack and Cheyenne sling themselves into their own vehicles, tearing off down the drive and hitting the sirens as soon as the tires touch the road headed for the Hub where Owen and Tosh will hopefully already have the instruments they need loaded into the black truck.

Rhiannon, true to her word, is sound asleep when Ianto lets himself in although at some point she got up long enough to open the playpen in the den and turn on the baby monitor. Indiana is well used to this routine and sleeps though being settled down into the mesh walled cot. He leaves the bag in the rocking chair under his sister’s window and creeps back out again. He’s closer to the scene than the rest of them from his sister’s house and yet Ianto’s still the last man to arrive, watching Owen hop into an ambulance that pulls off at speed while he climbs out of his car. The uniform on the scene is obviously new because he gives Ianto a beady eye, coming over ready to fight.

“Clear out, no gawkers.”

“Torchwood.” He’s got his badge already in hand, shoving it somewhat in the man’s direction as he slides under the police tape and heads for the caved-in car surrounded by busy crime scene techs in gloves scurrying around collecting samples and evidence that Ianto’s going to have to confiscate if this does turn out to be one of their cases. The forensic team at least knows the drill and there’s already someone waiting for him with a log of everything bagged and tagged so far. It’s only the work of minutes to scan the bar codes on all the evidence bags into his phone and shoot them ahead into Mainframe where Tosh’s programs will start copying every bit of data the national registry spits out as soon as the police run it through. He stands next to the ruined car, hands resting on his hips as he glances up the building to the well-lit fifth floor flat where he can see Jack’s shadow on the wall.

“Ianto, where are you?” Jack’s voice in the ear piece catches his attention from where he’s staring at forensic techs work what he’s pretty sure is a piece of someone’s scalp out of the crumpled metal.

“I just finished logging the first batch of evidence that needs to be processed, Sir. Just waiting on the crime scene photos.”

“Tosh can handle that. The scene’s already secured. Pack it in, grab a collections kit for Owen from the back of the truck, and meet him up at the old hospital on the west end. There are two rooms, I want to have two sets of eyes there as long as I can.”

“Yes, Sir.” He forwards Tosh the files he already has while he waits for her to make it down the stairs and as soon as he snags a small white box from the back of the SUV he’s behind the wheel of his car, lights running as an excuse to not have to take his foot off the gas as he rips through mostly deserted streets. So far the case sounds curious, but they still haven’t run into a good reason for them to be the ones working it. Secretly he’s hoping that by the time he makes it round to the hospital they’ll have found a perfectly normal murder weapon thrown somewhere out of the way and he can get home and back to bed.

There’s no murder weapon by the time he meets Owen in the hall outside a small private room.

The woman inside is trying very hard to be brave from the look on her face as she strokes the hair of the man stretched out on the stretcher, holding his hand carefully to keep from tugging at the IV lines running along his arm.

“They couldn’t have waited one more fucking day for this?” Owen snarls, greeting him with an unimpressed scowl. “I kicked out a pair of Swedish 'best friends' on their gap year for this.”

“Tell yourself it was good while it lasted.” Ianto grabs the knob of the door, walking through as he opens it, Owen at his side. The woman looks up at them as if she’s scared, it’s nothing more than Ianto would expect from the victims of a home invasion. “Beth and Michael Halloran? We’re here to take a couple of quick samples and a statement from both of you.” They both keep their eyes trained on him because everyone trusts a dark suit in times of turmoil.

“But, we already talked to the Police.” The woman moves her chair closer to her husband and he wraps his hand around hers.

“We know, and we have a copy of that. It’s just some routine clarification while we get a few painless samples.” He lets the two of them take him back through their version of the night; hears them as they describe everything from the first sound until the husband hits the wall in precise detail and then he listens as the entire narrative breaks down. To his right Owen is wearing a much less polite expression of disbelief, but the freshly spritzed reactants on the tips of both their fingers and palms are staying unlit under the black light Owen is running over Mike’s hands, although there are splatter patterns that Owen ignores across the backs of the hands and wrist, presumably because they belong to the body they’re on.

“…I didn't see anything. We all heard this weird noise, then the next thing I know, I'm in the corner and he's just -- sitting there, bleeding from his head. The other one was just gone.” The woman looks up at Ianto for a moment and then back down at her husband when he doesn’t say anything. “I just stayed there till the police arrived. Couldn't move. I should’ve checked on Mike.”

“Don’t be silly, you did the right thing.” Owen rolls his eyes as the man tugs his hand away from the swab the doctor is doing under his nails to squeeze his wife’s knee.

“Quiet, you. The doctor said you should rest.” Ianto forces himself to ignore their teasing as the two of them lean against each other. One of the people in front of him is possibly an alien, definitely a murderer and either way the life he’s seeing a glimpse of is over now. Next to him Owen drops each of the swabs into a vial, swirls them one after another and shakes his head once.

“Well, that’s done for now, thanks for your time. We’ll let you get some rest.” The door closes behind them and Owen chucks the sealed vials into his kit.

“Nothing but his blood on him, not a trace on her. Anywhere.” Ianto feels his brows creeping down as he peers over his shoulder. In the room Beth has her hands on Mike, the same way she’s been touching him the entire time they’ve been nearby. Owen strips his gloves off with a snort, shoving his head into the nearest room with a biohazard bin to chuck them. “Yeah, just a bit unlikely. It’s her.”

“Of course it’s her. If it were him he’d hardly be lying in there beat to hell, would he? Not being bloody isn’t much in the way of evidence though. No weapon, no record of her in our registry, and no proof that we should even have her registered in the first place.”

“Yeah, well I’m just saying that if that were you lying there, I’d have gotten residual hits off of Cheyenne’s hands. And from the way she’s pawing at him, I _should_ have them off hers.”

“So she wore gloves. Just because she did it doesn't make it ours.” Ianto crosses his arms, leaning against the nearest wall as he watches Beth Halloran cry with her husband. “Looks like self-defense. She tried calling the Police first, she was giving them what they asked for, but they’d roughed up the man, they were coming for her…” He jerks his arm twice in a quick upward motion into an invisible torso.

“Right, you arrived after the coroner carted the stiff off to Cheyenne. We’re not talking about bread knife stab wounds, these things penetrate from one side clear through to the other. The ones in his torso _and_ the one in his skull.” Ianto finds that it’s unfortunately easy to imagine a stab wound through a skull.

“It could still be argued self-defense.”

“Could be, except then the unlucky stiff gets tossed through the window onto the car below. Meanwhile his mate in there ends up with a back of a skull that looks like someone rolled a hard-boiled egg between their palms where he hit the wall. Sing the praises of adrenaline all you want but…to be continued.” Owen turns towards the wall, instinctively dodging the cameras that from the look of them may not even be working. “Yeah?” It’s Jack and Owen keeps it short mostly because there’s nothing much to tell. “No, nothing. He’s only got his own and she’s completely clear. Yeah, that’s what we thought too, so I’m heading in to finish processing the samples. Yeah.” Owen looks up with a smirk. “Jack says stay with the burglar in case he wakes up enough to get a wit statement from him and keep an eye on the other two.”

“I’m sure he said something like that anyway.” The doctor gives him a smug little smile.

“Yeah, something like that. But I’ve got DNA tests that aren’t going to run themselves, so I hope you’ve got a good book on your phone.”

“Damn. Well hold on, before you leave.” He digs out his wallet. “Go get me a coffee; from the shop, not the machine.”

“Are you paying?”

“I’m paying for mine.” He passes over his smallest bill in annoyance. It’s a ten and he knows he’s just bought Owen’s as well. Overhead the lights begin to crackle, guttering on and off before coming back dimly.

“Hospitals. They have to fall apart before someone fixes them.” Owen tucks the money in his pocket and wanders off, leaving Ianto staring at yet another ugly hospital wall until his ear piece beeps.

“Jones.”

“Okay, I just wrangled a corpse downstairs by myself, which I’ve learned to not let bother me, but normally they’re locked up or in the process of being taken apart and I have back up nearby. This one is fresh and creepy and I’m alone.” The corner of his mouth tips up in amusement as Cheyenne complains.

“Are you just complaining because it’s early and you need something to complain about? You aren’t actually scared, are you?”

“I’m not scared, I’m uneasy. Look, you and Owen have told me not one, but two stories involving corpses that walked around in here in the last three years. I feel my complaint is legit.”

“Then let Myfanwy out. She’ll protect you.”

“I can hear that you’re mocking me you know.” And he can hear her walking around the otherwise empty Hub. From the sounds of the water, she’s hanging near the rift manipulator. “Also, I think the Sub-etheric resonator is acting up again, because I keep smelling old bananas.” That is definitely the Sub-etheric resonator which tends to produce an ethanol compound when breaking down that smells almost exactly like slightly over ripe bananas.

“Damn. That’s the second time this year.” They’re going to have to find some way to replicate or replace the parts, because obviously duct tape, computer parts, and solder aren’t doing the job anymore. “I’ll find time to take a look at it later today.”

“Oh, not the answer I was hoping for. So this is actually one of ours then?”

“We saw some inconsistencies that point that way. I’m working off our cloud, double check for me and make sure we don’t have Beth Halloran on file under a different name. I’ll send you her picture.”

“Don’t bother. Jack already has me running both of them through our facial recognition. He’s a legit native son and from what I’ve found so far, either she changed her face to jump off the grid, or she’s never registered with us, but she’s not from around here. Her paper trail’s only about five years old according to Tosh’s search programs and it’s completely clean. Either way, we’ve got nothing on her in our systems. I sent her face out in a quick APB to our allies in case she’s one of theirs. India and China have already come back negative, Russia isn’t responding, and UNIT Japan is transmitting within the next fifteen minutes, but Africa, South America, UNIT Pan-America, and SHIELD have yet to respond.”

“Well, how did you flag it?”

“Moderate priority. Jack says he’s not worried enough to start waking people up just to look at a picture of a minimal threat. She’s contained, under surveillance and it looks like she’s ours anyway. This is just to cover our asses.” Her nails are clicking off the keys as she talks. “And that was an email from Japan. Unless we hear something unexpected from Russia that just ruled her out of Asia’s registry systems.”

“Hold on.” Owen comes down the hall, shoving Ianto’s coffee at him.

“Jack?”

“Cheyenne.”

“Did she pick up my body?”

“It’s there and waiting.” The medic lifts his own cup at Ianto in recognition and takes off down the hall without giving Ianto back his change. “Owen’s en-route.”

“Good. I’m not kidding about feeling one hundred percent more comfortable once that thing is opened too wide to chase me.”

“Did I know you were insane when I started dating you? I feel like you should have warned me.”

“Darlin, I ran over an alien for you on our like…third or fourth date and fucked your boyfriend that same night. You had clues.” He wants to laugh, but the smile is already melting off his face as he watches Mike Halloran make room for his wife to crawl onto the metal railed bed next to him. “What’s wrong?”

“It almost seems like a shame when we catch the ones who managed to blend successfully. She built a life with someone, she kept her head down, and she assimilated and now we’ve got to bring her in, build her file, put restrictions on her…”

“Jack runs easily the most humane forced immigration and relocation system on the planet. SHIELD’s registration program is way more intensive, the waiting period for naturalization is longer, and they have to stay in quarantine camps until they’ve been processed. A couple hours in the Hub while we register her species and make sure she knows the rules aren’t that bad.”

“I know. And when we catch them fresh I never doubt that we’re helping them as much as we’re helping ourselves. But now that she’s done this thing with the robbers, and it’s definitely her, we’re not just going to keep her a couple hours. She’s ours until the investigation is done, and then we’ll have to mark her file as all three strikes.”

“But…I thought everyone keeps saying this was self-defense?”

“It is.” In the room the couple have drifted off to sleep in each other’s arms and Ianto gives them one last long look. “But she’s killed a human being. The law as it’s written makes no exceptions. She’ll be put on permanent level 10 probation for the rest of her life _if_ we can prove it was an accident or self-defense. ” And executed immediately if they find it was done with any deliberation. In the best case scenario for the rest of the time that Beth lives on Earth she’ll have to pre-register and get permission to travel between official territories, register an itinerary of her movements any time she’s outside of Torchwood’s jurisdiction, and seek clearance to make every big change from moving to having a child. More importantly, all of her mistakes will be used up. Any infraction of the long list of rules will end in either permanent detention or execution.

“You’re right. That’s fucking crazy.” He can’t watch them sleeping anymore. The nurse at the end of the hall points him towards the right room, half a wing over and Ianto looks at the blind corner he’s about to put between himself and the others under observation in annoyance before heading off and slumping against the only corner that allows him to see both closed doors. “What happens to the burglar?”

“You mean if he survives?” Ianto looks in through the reinforced glass in the door at the man hooked up to a variety of support machines. “If he can be charged, he’ll do the regular pull for an attempted breaking and entering. He might get off. Depending on what we might find, Jack may have to bury the whole thing.”

“You’re fucking kidding me. That…ooh.” He smiles a little as Cheyenne growls into her Bluetooth. “That’s not fair, Ianto.”

“It’s really cute how you say that so often.”

“Shut up. I’ve got movement coming in down the tunnel, Owen’s here. I have to check in with Jack and see if he’s relocating me now that Owen’s in house, but I’ll call you back.”

“Okay. Love you.” The connection drops off after her reply and Ianto settles against the off white plaster on bedside watch.

He’s making the circuit back from where Beth and Mike are still sleeping when he hears the monitors start to alarm. At the end of the hall nurses in scrubs are moving very fast in his direction and Ianto sprints into the room before the hospital staff show up and do something damned inconvenient like slap an oxygen supply over his witness’s mouth. The man is sweating and pale, eyes over wide as he gasps for air on lips going blue.

“Nurses are on the way. You’re fine, alright? Tell me who did this to you.” The burglar's hands fly up, clutching at Ianto’s arm as he struggles to breathe, mouth wide as he gasps.

“W-woman. K-k-kee…k-keep her…a-aw-aw...”

“The woman in the flat?”

“Sir, you need to move.” One of the nurses is tugging him roughly away, a team of medical professionals in scrubs busy easing the desperately gasping burglar back flat down.

“His BP is plunging. He’s bleeding out somewhere.”

“Page a surgeon.”

“Start charging that.”

“Oi!” The same young girl has him by the elbow, shoving him towards the door. “I said, get _out_.” The door slams shut between them and he hurries to clear the hall, heading towards the Halloran’s room and away from the sound of running feet. He reaches up, thumbing the line open.

“Jack, we’re losing the other one.”

“I’m on my way in with Tosh. Be ready to grab her.”

Beth Halloran never tries to run. She comes awake with confused little gasp when Ianto calls her name softly from just inside the door and slides compliantly out of the bed when he tells her they just have a couple last quick questions for her before they’re all done, if she’d like to step out of the room and not wake her husband. She doesn’t recognize Jack when Ianto leads her around the corner, just looks up into Jack’s frowning face once in confusion before Ianto sprays a quick squirt of their standard multi-species tranquilizer directly in her face. Beth begins to sag almost immediately and Ianto has her snapped down into cuffs before her head starts to droop. It’s not much, not enough to knock her out, but it should keep her compliant long enough to get her to the Hub. They take her out between them, and no one looks twice at the limp woman being hustled through the hall in cuffs. Years of practice make loading her into the truck easy and she looks up at Ianto with nothing but fear as he buckles her, still cuffed, into the back seat and pulls out the black hood from under the seat, working the opening wide enough that he doesn’t get his hands too close to her mouth.

“Who..?”

“Sorry.”

She doesn’t start to scream until he yanks the bag over her head.


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

Beth’s face is still as unfamiliar to him in person as it was on a screen when Jack reaches down and whips the hood off of the woman’s head. She gasps, they all gasp when the hood comes off, sucking in fresh cool air as she looks down at her hands, cuffed and secured to the safety bar under the table. The chains are long enough to give her just enough slack to rest her hands on the very edge of the table top and she rattles the restraints as she tests them in fear, whipping her head away from Jack to stare at Ianto in betrayal. The younger man just gives her the same impassive expression that makes him so formidable in interrogations, manila folder filled with crime scene photos held down by his waist.

 

“Where am I? Where’s my husband?!” She’s looking around the room now, eyes on the two-way mirror as if they might have the man chained to a cot behind it.

 

“He’s safe.”

 

“What do you mean safe? What have you done with him?”

 

“Nothing. Yet.” Across the room Ianto’s face doesn’t so much as twitch but Jack can tell his lover thinks he’s coming in too hard and too quick even if the witness can’t, too busy watching him out of over-wide brown eyes as he put his palms flat on the table to loom over her. “Tell me what happened in the flat Beth. It had to be you or Mike, so how'd you do it?”

 

“You can't treat people like this. I've been burgled, attacked! I want a lawyer, I want a phone call. If you're charging me with something...” Her voice is airy as the words tumble out of her, rushed and whimpered. Her eyes have yet to stop jumping around the room and Jack grits his teeth and slams his hand off the table. In her chair Beth Halloran flinches back, a little scream choked deep into her throat.

 

“We're not charging you with anything. We don't have to.” Her eyes stay on him now, tracking him around the room as he walks. “And there'll be no lawyer, no phone calls, just us, and this room for as long as it takes. Now, tell me what happened!”

 

“I did! I already told the police, and him!” Her chains rattle as she goes to gesture towards Ianto and her hands are drawn up short. It doesn’t deter her from trying to reach toward Ianto in the corner. “Tell him I told you. _Please_.”

 

“You didn't tell him everything Beth.” Ianto steps forward at Jack's words and flips the folder in his hands open, fingers quick as he flips a series of photos from tonight's crime scene face up across the table in front of the bound woman. Jack watches the way the woman's brows tip down in confusion, head twisting to the side as she tries to make sense of what she's seeing before her face clears into a blend of shock and disgusted terror. She flinches away and he whips his hand out, wrapping his fingers around the thin curve of her shoulder and shoving her back around towards the photo of the glassy eyed corpse, staring up from the crumpled windscreen of a car, blood darkly black in the shadows and cartoon red under the flash where it trails out from the gaping stab wound between the eyes.

 

“Stop.”

 

“Look at them.” She's shaking under his grip as Ianto continues to lay out the shots. “The second man just died, Beth. ‘Keep her away from me. The woman in the flat.’ Those were his dying words.” Or close enough anyway. “Now, why would he say something like that?”

 

“I don't know! I didn't do anything, I swear I never touched him!”

 

“Was it Mike?”

 

“No!” The hair on the back of his arms all stands on end and Jack looks from the skin of his forearms, pebbled up into goose bumps up to the swinging light over the table that has just shorted its fuse with a soft pop. Across the table Ianto is ready to be, if not the good cop than at least the reasonable one, settling into a chair instead of looming over the chained woman and gathering the crime scene photos that Beth is trying so hard not to look at back into the folder. Jack leaves them there, sliding out of the dimmer room as Ianto drops his voice soothingly to talk to the woman of self-defense, and ducking behind the wall to watch through the mirror that separated the observation room from the lower floor of the Main Hub. He cuts through the workstations on his way to where Cheyenne's standing behind the two way mirror, sipping at the oversized mug of coffee in her hands. Next to her Owen snorts and moves away, leaving room for Jack to slide in next to her and watch Ianto with Beth through the glass.

 

“So, 'Just us and this room for as long as it takes', huh?” The corner of her mouth curls up from behind her mug as she tips it up. “Terrifying.”

 

“Jesus, you're starting to sound like the teaboy.” They ignore Owen and Jack steps closer until he's got her tucked under his arm, reaching down to pluck her mug out of her hand. He knows her coffee is going to be too sweet before he gulps down a hot mouthful but it's still better than going to get his own.

 

“Terrifying, really?”

 

“Absolutely. Shivers down my spine and everything.”

 

“Because you don't look scared.” He wonders if he can really stand taking another gulp of Cheyenne’s early morning sugar bomb.

 

“Do you two have to do the banter and eye fucking routine every bloody time you're in the same room?” They let Owen complain to himself, ignoring him as Jack compares going all the way to the galley and making his own coffee against drinking more of hers before deciding it's worth another mouthful of dark chocolate syrup.

 

“Well, the moment's over with, isn't it?” She reaches up and plucks the mug from his mouth before he can take another long swallow. “Go get your own.”

 

He doesn't want to go get his own, grumbling in annoyance as he throws himself down into the chair of what used to be his desk, back before he ended up in charge of all of this almost a decade ago.

 

“Tosh, anything out of the ordinary on that body scan? What can you tell me about the light? Was it a power surge?”

 

“I'm not sure yet. I'm not seeing anything from our side as far as the light goes. I've got a buildup of electromagnetic energy around her right before it blew, but I'm not sure if she actually _caused_ it yet.”

 

“She caused it. Same thing happened at the hospital. It's not a coincidence.” Owen wanders across the room, dropping down none to gently on the edge of Toshiko's desk.

 

“It's not; it's her. Go get ready to run a couple rounds of 'who or what are you' if she won't come clean, Owen. Let's run some tests and see who we're dealing with. Tosh, keep an eye on her. Cheyenne,” The woman looks at him over the curve of her shoulder. “Give Ianto another five minutes and then head in there. Try a soft touch.” He's missing Gwen right now with her disarming smile and quick cop brain, but he's willing to take Cheyenne's wide eyes and soft southern drawl instead as a way to soften Beth's defenses.

 

“Okay.”

 

“Tosh, send me what you’ve got so far and let's get the mainframe running a couple of extra sensory scans as well. Let’s try to get her processed as quickly as possible.”

 

He’s finally given up hoping that Ianto can feel him wanting a coffee and gone all the way to the galley to make his own when the mug is plucked from his hand.

 

“You could have angsted a little louder about having to make your own drink. I don’t think Beth knows how helpless you are yet.” Ianto’s voice rumbles in Jack’s ear as the younger man presses against him from behind to take the pot of tepid coffee from his other hand.

 

“I was making it.”

 

“The fact that you’re just making it _now_ means that you spent at least ten minutes waiting for me to come do it. More if you didn’t take someone  else’s.” The warmth of Ianto’s body disappears as he crosses the galley to pour the old pot down the sink.

 

“Yes, but I was making it _now_. Is she still sticking with her ‘I don’t know what happened’ routine?”

 

“Hasn’t so much as batted an eyelash the wrong way. If I didn’t know she did it I wouldn’t doubt her.”

 

“And that makes you nervous?” Because Jack knows the signs, and Ianto’s accent is thickening, movements quick and precise and everything his long fingers touch gets lined up perfectly squared and neatened as he measures out beans and grinds them with a quick tap of a button.

 

“We’ve got her, the best thing she can do now is come clean and work with us. She’s wasting a lot of time acting like she doesn’t know what happening here, so why? What’s she hiding?” The grounds are dark as they’re shaken into the filter.

 

“I don’t know, but we’ll find out.” As soon as his coffee is done brewing. “Are you heading back into questioning?”

 

“No, Cheyenne’s in there doing reassuring girl talk while she starts the intake file. Owen only has a couple more minutes until he’s ready to start; I’ll let her walk Beth down so I can get started on the Rift Manipulator. Apparently the Sub Etheric Resonator is acting up again.” Which would explain why Jack hasn’t been able to stop thinking about banana bread for the last half hour. “I might need you to look at it, because I’ve done two bypasses in the last eleven months and I don’t think I can figure out another one without changing how the bloody thing works and blowing us all to Hell. If we need to replace it, do we have something that will stand in?”

 

“I should have three or four things we can cannibalize shoved up on a shelf somewhere in the parts bins. Go ahead and get it open, I’ll bring up what we can scrap once I find it. Did you move my junkyard again?”

 

“Yes, I put your _piles of trash_ back where they belong; but since you sulk if I put it away correctly, it’s all been given its own section up in purgatory. I’d like to get the Rift Manipulator back up and running _before_ the Rift wakes up again, so take this with you.” Ianto shoves the blue striped mug into Jack’s hands. “If we can convince her to come clean, we might be out of here in time to still get Indy and head down to the shore.”

 

“Oh, well that’s worth breaking the torture equipment out for.” He grins swallowing deeply from the mug.

 

“Fine, then get it all together while you’re finding the Resonator parts.” And because he knows Ianto’s already busy thinking about the Sub-Etheric Resonator, Jack stands at the counter long enough to watch Ianto jog up the tight cast iron spiral staircase before ducking down the back service hall towards the archives. The purgatory storage is possibly the most expensive junk drawer in the entire United Kingdom. It used to be the main clean room until a larger space was refitted back in the late eighties. Now it’s a dust free climate controlled place to stick all the broken alien bits he has any chance of recycling.

 

He had the parts he needed mostly together and of course Ianto has scattered them again, re-sorting them most likely by size and shape. The shelves are illogically but temptingly arranged because of it, plasma packs nested down next to things they’re not designed to fuel but probably could if Jack can rig some kind of adapters. He gives himself sixty seconds to scan the bins for what he can use to adapt the plasma pack the next time he has a few minutes and dumps them all into a convenient empty bin before grabbing another two partially destroyed circuit boards from the crash that brought them the mainframe AI, a Sontarian regulator for clone baths, and a set of human micro-processors from the not too far future. He’s pretty sure Mainframe is just diverting more power to the resonator than the old converter boards can handle, blowing out Ianto’s bypassed relays every five and a half months like clockwork. It should be a fairly quick job hunched over the fabrication table to solder everything together and he hits the Hub floor with them in his hands in time to hear Ianto scolding the cuffed woman next to Cheyenne for literally sniffing around the broken resonator.

 

“I’m going to make an entirely new relay for that as soon as we’re done with her.” The woman is talking to Cheyenne absently, voice raw with nerves as she mumbles something about feeling small and Jack feels his nerves set on edge at the tone. Ianto’s right, if they weren’t sure Beth Halloran is an alien, everything about her reaction would paint her as innocent. She’s trying too hard.

 

“Come on, let’s get her down to Owen and get this done.” Cheyenne doesn’t hand him control of Beth, just takes the other woman firmly by the elbow and falls in step behind him as they hustle down to the med bay. Owen’s already got everything laid out along a steel cart and Jack reaches back when the alien woman tries to hesitate, pulling her firmly along to the gurney and cuffing her to the rails. “She’s all yours, Owen.”

 

“We'll start with a few blood tests, nothing to worry about, just a little needle.” His voice is cheerful but apparently the man’s best bedside manners aren’t reassuring Beth. She looks alarmingly pale as Owen uncaps the sharp tip. The woman clenches her eyes tightly shut, turning her face towards Cheyenne who’s rubbing Beth’s shoulder reassuringly as Owen leans down to stick her before straightening up with a curious little hum in the back of his throat.

 

“What?”

 

“Needle snapped.”

 

“Haven’t you got a nurse who can do this?” Beth demands, tugging her arm as far back as the cuffs will allow.

 

“No, but we have a doctor who’s already doing it. It’s okay honey.”

 

Owen brandishes another needle in the air triumphantly before flipping the protective cover off into the sharps bin. This time Jack sidles right far enough to see Owen pull the skin taut and proceed to snap another thin hollow bit of metal in half. The broken tip goes ricocheting off somewhere and Owen steps back, face drawn down into a contemplative frown.

 

“Ah, okay. Look, I'm not going to do this if you can't even...” Beth continues tugging at her cuffs in nervous annoyance that turns to outright fear when Owen whips back around from his tray, scalpel in hand and face entirely too calm and curious. “What are you _doing_?!”

 

“Bear with me.”

 

“Oi! Hey, ah…” Beth sucks in a breath to scream and chokes on it as Owen swipes at the tender underside of her forearm and pulls back a broken scalpel.

 

“When was the last time you were in hospital, Beth?” Owen’s voice is distracted, too busy looking at the snapped blade.

 

“I -- I don't remember. I don't think I ever have. Why, what's wrong with me?” She whips her head back from Owen to Cheyenne who has taken a step back and moved her reassuring hand from the easily reached shoulder to the middle of Beth’s back.

 

“Well, any operations? Checkups?”

 

“No, nothing.”

 

“When was the last time you felt ill? You had a cold? Anything?”

 

“I don't think I ever have. I take a lot of vitamin C.”

 

“Mm, hell of a lot I reckon.” Obviously Owen’s decided he’s done here and until they know how to take a sample there’s not much else the man can do. Jack gives it half a moment and when Beth’s face stays twisted into her confused mask decides that he‘s done giving her a chance to save herself.

 

“Okay, Beth. You make light bulbs blow, we can't break your skin. What planet are you from?” It’s the way she looks at him, like she has no idea what he’s talking about that makes him angry and the way she says ‘Earth’ like he’s an idiot just annoys him. “Stop wasting our time! We know you're an alien!”

 

“There’s no such thing as aliens!” Her voice is shrill and Jack can feel his eye wanting to tick as Beth continues to fight them every step of the way. He hasn’t had to deal with an intake like this since the eighties when a much younger Alex let him start the first of the outreach programs with just his own name and phone number printed up in Galactic Standard over the words ‘We know what you are. We can help.’ It’s been almost thirty years since then and Jack has found a thousand ways to scatter clues across the United Kingdom, ways for aliens to identify and seek help and there’s no way Beth has never seen one of them. Not when he’s had Galactic Standard printed onto every governmental ‘if you need a translator’ poster since ninety-one and labeled as Honduran. He doesn’t trust the way she’s clinging to her story.

 

“Alright, if you want to do it the hard way.” He stomps down the stairs and unshackles Beth from the cot, yanking her up onto her feet. Cheyenne takes half a step forward, stopping with a shrug when he points in her direction.

 

“Where are you taking me? Don’t let him take me!” She stumbles as he pulls her up the stairs and across the floor to the far staircase leading down to the cells, almost tumbling down the steel grate steps when she fights to keep from being pulled onwards. The cell blocks are dim and foreboding at the best of times and Beth almost manages to throw herself to the ground before he settles her back onto her feet. The door lets go with a heavy click and Jack marches her directly to Janet’s cell, shoving her into the glass hard enough for the sound to annoy the old female weevil into growling and charging the wall.

 

“Beth, Janet. Janet, Beth.”

 

“What is it?” Her voice is barely a whisper and Jack can hear the dry click as she tries to swallow.

 

“It's an alien. But you know that ‘cause you are, too.”

 

“No, it's not!” Her voice edges up towards hysterically shrill as she struggles to get her hands up and push back away from the glass Jack has her pinned to and Janet who’s got her jaws gaped as she scents the air, twisting her head like a bird to get a better look. “ _I'm_ not. I work in an office.”

 

“Then why do you give off electro-magnetic waves? _Why_?”

 

“I don't know!” There are tears streaming off her chin now, hands pressed limply against the glass where she’s not even attempting to struggle anymore and that is the least interesting thing happening in the cells right now. “Stop it! Why are you doing this? I want Mike. I want to go home!” She’s pleading, something about her husband that Jack ignores as trivial, watching curiously as Janet takes one more long scent of the air and drops her head, pulling her shoulders up as she begins to back away slowly.

 

“Why is it doing that?” Beth's voice is small and watery as they watch Janet slink towards safety.

 

“I don't know. She's never done it before.” But now he’s wondering if he should get Owen and Ianto down to check on the locals or if he should have more weapons pointed at the prisoner next to him.

 

“This is real, isn't it?” Beth’s voice is dull, text book perfect shock that’s got his brain racing for a reason good enough to keep up the charade.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“I don't know about my skin, or any of that other stuff. I just…how can I prove it to you? How can I _prove_ to you that I'm not an alien?” Her words are soft and Jack looks down at the top of her head, opening his mouth to snap at her when his headset beeps in his ear.

 

“Could she be a changeling?” Toshiko’s voice almost plants a knotting seed of doubt in the pit of Jack’s stomach. There are shelves and shelves piled with neatly cataloged children's belongings in the archives. Mostly it arrives as Rift debris but sometimes the toys arrive clutched in small appendages. And sometimes, back before they had the technology to watch an area, a reading big enough to be a body would show up and there would be nothing but pulled through trash or an abandoned toy by the time they arrived at the scene, the child just gone. Now they find them quickly, but for decades it was mostly teenagers and adults that ended up on the Torchwood radar years later. The second case Tosh ever worked for him was a changeling.

 

And then he remembers the look of utter relief in every changelings face when he says the word ‘Alien’. That look of belonging, the expression that says ‘there’s a reason I act this way’ that isn’t there on Beth’s face. She looks perfectly human.

 

Too human and too sure of herself.

 

“One way to find out. Tell Owen to get the sensors set up.” 

 


	3. Chapter 3

The mind probe is an antique and despite what Jack says, Ianto’s pretty sure the man reassembled at least part of it from scraps since it’s the only thing that plugs into the outlets without connecting it through an adapter of some kind.

 

Also, he’s pretty sure it didn’t originally come mounted to a wheelchair that’s easily older than everyone in the room except for Jack. Ianto grabs the handle with one hand, keeping the delicately wired connectors for the helmet from banging around with the other as he takes it down into the med bay, Jack trailing along behind him with the massive box full of wires and chips that make it run gathered up in his arms. Everyone else is already gathered around, Owen setting up his emergency crash cart and fidgeting with the monitors and leads to all of it. Jack puts the box down in front of Toshiko and begins passing cords and plugs back towards Ianto who simply matches each colored end to the correct place.

 

“You said we weren't allowed to use that again.” Tosh is staring at Jack and the heavy metal helmet he’s holding when Ianto looks over his shoulder to grab the next part.

 

“I said _you_ all weren’t to use it again. _I’m_ using it.” Ianto lets himself smirk as Tosh stares down Jack until the immortal man shoves the helmet at Ianto defensively “It's just a mind probe.”

 

“Remember what happened last time you used it? I think that’s how you started the conversation _then_ too.” He needs an extra set of hands and Cheyenne’s there before he can call for someone, holding the double handful of leads that plug into the metal helmet and handing them to him one at a time.

 

“That was different. That species has extremely high blood pressure.”

 

“Oh, right, their heads must explode all the time.”

 

“Their what do _what_? Jack, you can’t be serious.” Cheyenne’s aghast, staring alternately at the chair and Jack. “What if you're wrong? What if she’s not aggressive and she _is_ a lost kid? You’ll kill her.” The helmet is secured correctly and Ianto settles into the chair, listening to the creak of the metal as he begins securing one limb at a time and testing the security straps.

 

“I'm not wrong. We have to find out what she is.”

 

“Well, take it easy Jack. Stop at the first sign of trouble.” Tosh chides from her seat at Owen’s terminal.

 

“Or the first sign of exploding.” Jack glares, throwing both hands into the air.

 

“Just bring her in.” Cheyenne rolls her eyes, heading for the stairs to pull Beth out of lock down in the interrogation room

 

“I’m going. God, we question the head explodies _once_ and you catch an attitude.” She flounces up the stairs and Ianto waits until she turns for the door, putting him directly in her line of sight, to give into the urge that’s been building since he sat down in the chair and pretend he’s being electrocuted.

 

He can’t help it. He really can’t. Cheyenne throws her hand over her eyes, snickering even as she pinches at the bridge of her nose.

 

“Hey!” Jack’s got his hands on his hips, giving Ianto a dirty look. It’s too early to pretend to be sorry when he’s not and Ianto gives him an unapologetic shrug, straightening his suit as he slides off the old leather. Owen gives him a narrow eyed look, shaking his head.

 

“You’re an idiot. Obviously, Harkness has been rubbing off on you.” It’s a perfect opening and Ianto just smiles at Owen and waits until the doctor narrows his eyes and wrinkles his nose in disgust. “I fucking hate you.”

 

It doesn’t take long for Cheyenne to come back, Beth keeping step meekly alongside her. The two of them come down the stairs at a trot, Cheyenne’s heels clicking out a fast tattoo on the metal and tiles while Beth shuffles along in her trainers.

 

“Okay, go ahead and take a seat. There are safety restraints to keep you from involuntary movements that could harm you during the probe.” Owen gestures them towards the wheelchair as Beth stops cold a good ten feet away from the frightening set of accessories on the wheelchair.

 

“Beth, honey, you can keep coming with me, or the boys will _put_ you in the chair. Let’s do this like ladies and get all this straightened out so we can get you back to your husband.” Cheyenne reaches up to rub the woman’s shoulder, nudging her until Beth finally lifts one foot, marching reluctantly towards the chair. “There we go. You’re okay. Go ahead and sit down and we’re gonna fasten you in and we’ll be done real quickly.” Tosh has already hunched down, locking Beth’s feet into place while Cheyenne starts unfastening the cuffs around her wrists.

 

“Not too tight, is it?” Beth looks back and forth between Tosh and Chy with a grim little smile as she tries to flex her legs and can’t.

 

“It's fine.” She licks her lips slowly. “Are you sure this is safe?”

 

“You’ll be fine darlin.”

 

“Just try not to, you know, kill me or anything, okay?” Beth’s voice cracks as Tosh tightens the last strap and Owen steps into her place, carefully attaching electrodes to her temples and pulse points.

 

“You'll probably get dehydrated during the probing.” Ianto reaches behind himself and gets one of the lightly chilled bottles of water with a straw in it, holding it down to her lips.

 

“Thank you.” She doesn’t see the look Owen gives Jack as he hesitates with the crown of the metal helmet over Beth’s head before Jack’s sharp nod encourages him to settle it so that the electrode pads lock into grooves lining the inside of the helmet. Owen steps back and Ianto reaches over, flipping on the standby power source and watching as it lights up and begins to hum. At Owen’s desk Tosh’s fingers snap off the keys and Jack nods when she looks up.

 

“We're all set.” Tosh says and Jack steps up, thumbs hooked in his belt loops as he stares down his nose at the woman looking up at him from under the heavy cap hanging over her head.

 

“The probe drills down through your consciousness, so if there's anything hidden, it'll pop to the surface.” Jack’s words are clipped as he explains what happens next.

 

“Will it hurt?”

 

“Yeah.” Beth snorts when he doesn’t even hesitate to answer.

 

“Your bedside manner's rubbish.” Jack gives her a thin smile and turns away, leaving Cheyenne to step back up to the chair.

 

“All right, are you ready?”

 

“I suppose.”

 

“Okay, so we'll do this slowly. Tosh will control the probe, Owen will make sure you're not in danger, Ianto will have more water when you need it, and if you need anything we’re right here.”

 

“And what about him?” Beth tosses her chin at Jack since the rest of her is secured. “What does he do?”

 

“I'll be watching.” They don’t bother bracing her any further. Tosh takes a long slow breath, and syncs her system to Owen's. From where Ianto’s standing he can see when the two finish connecting, go lights appearing on both monitors seconds before the woman in the chair gasps and cries out in pain.

 

“I’m human!” On Owen's monitor, Ianto watches the doctor tab back and forth between ECGs, EKGs, and a model of the human body where the nervous system seems to be going from a deep blue to an unpleasantly bruise colored purple, heading slowly towards danger zone red as Beth groans and shouts.

 

“Safe.” Owen doesn’t take his eyes off her stats and Jack doesn’t look back to the medic again, stepping up closer to the chair.

 

“Who killed the burglars, Beth?”

 

“I don't know! I…oh! My...ahhh!” The muscles in her arms are straining where the woman keeps trying to cradle her head in her palms.

 

“Still safe.”

 

“What planet are you from?” In the chair Beth is panting heavily, body jerking as she tries to fight away from the pain.

 

“I'm _human_! Oh, God, it hurts! Please, please, st-stop!”

 

“Go deeper.” Jack doesn’t hesitate, arms crossed as he stares down at the panting figure with her eyes clenched shut in agony.

 

“Are you sure?” Tosh hesitates, fingers hovering over the keys as she turns to look doubtfully at Jack.

 

“Do it!”

 

“Vital signs are all over the place, but still safe.” Owen keeps his back firmly turned on the room because if there’s one thing the medic can’t stomach it’s interrogations. It’s one of Ianto’s favorite things about the older man. Particularly when he’s standing here wondering when he became the kind of person who doesn’t feel guilty about not feeling guilty when he listens to someone begging for help.

 

“Getting electromagnetic build-up again,” Tosh warns in a tight voice.

 

“Who killed those men?!” Jack’s leaning forward, yelling into a sobbing woman’s face and _there’s_ the guilt.

 

“ _I don't know_! Make it stop! _Please_!” No one says anything, eyes locked on Jack’s grim face as he crosses his arms over his chest, and Ianto wonders if they’re all waiting for Gwen to appear out of nowhere and make Jack stop.

 

“Deeper!” There’s nothing easy about watching the probe at work. Beth has stopped writhing and just sits, sweating and shaking as she pants for air between her groaning sobs. Ianto looks away with a grimace, eyes skipping from Tosh chewing on the sides of her nail as she works to Owen’s firmly turned back and the way the doctor’s free hand is clenched into a white knuckled fist next to the computer. Overhead the lights begin to sputter and flicker. Next to Jack, Cheyenne startles backwards as an alarm begins to sound from somewhere on the main floor.

 

“Something's happening to the lights!” The sputtering has become a strobing that’s going to blow out every bulb in the room if it keeps up.

 

“The electro-magnetic pulse is off the scale.” Tosh is tapping fast and hard at the keys and for a moment the lights brighten again as she tries to reroute power to avoid a blowout before the alarm gets louder and they begin to flicker faster.

 

“I don’t know how much more she can take!” Owen’s words are snapped off as he whips around from the machines.

 

“Jack,” Cheyenne’s voice is tight as she stands well back from the chair and its occupant, folded arms tucked high under her breasts. “This is getting dangerous for the systems and the girl. We can‘t keep up this push without breaking one of them.” The words are hardly out of her mouth when Beth goes silent. The wet animal raw sounds she’s making cut off abruptly, her body slumping bonelessly in the seat as the restraints keep her from sliding out of the chair. Overhead the lights have stopped their desperate attempt to blow themselves out and Ianto can’t stop the disapproving eyebrow that creeps upward as he looks from the restrained body strapped into the mind probe back to Jack.

 

“She’s not dead or the heart monitor would have stopped. Wait for it.”

 

Jack is the only one who doesn’t flinch backwards when Beth sits upright. Her movements are as fluid as one can move when strapped down at five points and Ianto watches in fascinated disgust as the skin of her forearm begins to bubble and pucker. It twists and hardens into something bio-mechanical, glowing a sinister red under her skin. Tosh has half risen, peering over the monitor in curiosity even though Ianto knows she’s got an HD image that she can zoom or manipulate right at her fingertips, Owen seems less interested in Beth than the readouts in front of him, leaning in towards the screen and scowling at whatever it is he sees.

 

It doesn’t escape Ianto that Jack looks like he knows exactly what it is they’re looking at.

 

“Never mind, don’t know why I doubted you.” Cheyenne steps closer tentatively, head cocked to the side as she drifts towards the morphed arm.

 

“I wouldn't get that close.” Jack reaches out, wrapping his hand around Cheyenne’s wrist before she steps past him. “Toshiko, what do you see?”

 

“We hit a buried compartment. Locked away. She couldn't have been aware of it.” Jack nods absently and steps closer to the woman, watching them out of flat unexpressive eyes.

 

“Let’s try this again. Who are you?”

 

“Kayehla janees, putaak graszh, ish nin fas du hap vac nal.”

 

“Shit!” Chy is digging in her blouse which means she has her phone stuck in her bra again, yanking it out and pointing it directly at the chair. She complains, constantly, about the quality of recordings they have for language comparison and Ianto can’t help but feel just a bit smug that now she knows why they’re so haphazard. Jack steps to the side automatically, making sure the woman has a clear shot at her angle to add to the overhead footage Mainframe is recording.

 

“Where are you from?” The question is snapped out, but there’s no real heat behind it, as if Jack doesn’t actually care if the woman in custody answers it or not.

 

“Kayehla janees, putaak graszh, ish nin fas du hap vac nal.” Beth doesn’t take her eyes off Jack’s, face stony and intense as she spews the same string of gibberish at him. Behind her phone Cheyenne hums low in her throat and steps closer, phone aimed carefully towards the bound woman’s face. Jack’s jaw is clenched in annoyance.

 

“How do you like my boots?” In the chair Beth’s head tilts as she looks down before jerking her eyes back forward.

 

“Kayehla janees, putaak graszh, ish nin fas du hap vac nal.”

 

“That’s what I thought. No closer yet, Dr. Morgan.” There’s a scanner on the cart and Jack plucks it up, leaning casually over the bound woman and beginning to scan the twisted flesh of her arm. “Want to earn your paycheck with a guess?”

 

“First of all, I earn my paycheck every time you hand me a file where someone from the fifties has jumbled four or five languages together as one. That said, if I have to guess, she’s identifying herself. Hostilely. Which I’m pretty sure you already know.”

 

“Name, rank, serial number,” the immortal man confirms without looking up. “And that's all she's gonna say.”

 

“I thought so. Now, how do _you_ know?”

 

“Cause I know who she is and why she's here.” The scanner in his hands beeps twice and Jack steps back, tossing it towards Ianto. It smacks into his palm, heavier than it looks. “Switch off the probe. “

 

“Off.” Tosh strikes the keys hard and fast and the low electrical droning of the probe cycles up in pitch before trailing off sharply. In the chair Beth’s arm twists, all but melting back together and smoothing out like old fashioned clay animation. In the chair Beth takes a deep breath and her hand flexes twice before dropping as limp as the rest of her. The lights on the helmet fade slowly when Ianto kills the standby power, making room for Owen to come in and start unclipping electrodes, removing the probe from her head. When she comes awake it’s very sudden; no moans, no small movements, just one short shudder and her eyes are open and clear.

 

“Oh, you weren't lying, that really hurt!” Her eyes go right to Jack, face curious and hopeful. “Did you find anything?”

 

“Yeah.” For the first time Jack's voice is soft with the woman in the chair. “So we're going to let you rest down in holding while we take a look. Ianto, get her settled one floor down.” Down in maximum security where the old brick walls have been reinforced from behind with two inches of steel and the glass is blast proofed. Tosh doesn't wait to be sent off to work, crossing the floor to nip the hand held out of Ianto's hand and disappear while Cheyenne follows Jack up the stairs towards the conference room.

 

“Alright Beth, We're going to unlock your hands and feet, but I'm going to leave the chest strap on until you catch your breath. Have another drink.” Owen's already on the floor working the straps around Beth's ankles loose and Ianto cracks open a fresh bottle of chilled water, easing the straw between her lips and holding it steady as she gulps gratefully. Ianto lets her fumble the chest restraint free herself when she's ready, keeping one hand firmly under her elbow in case her legs begin to buckle as she rises unsteadily to her feet. “There we go. Good job. Come on, let's get you somewhere safe where you can have a lie down for a couple hours.”

 

“But, what about Mike? I...”

 

“Your husband is resting safely and is being well taken care of. Let's take care of you right now.” There's no fight left in Beth Halloran as Ianto guides her slowly down to the max security cells and settles her into the one with the best cctv coverage. He's not allowed to offer her a pillow or blanket yet, not until they know more about what they're dealing with, but the room is warmer than it looks and Beth is too exhausted to complain, staggering into the cell and slumping down onto the cot with its thick firm foam mat. She pulls her knees up towards her chin, thin shoulders quivering as she turns her back on him and Ianto locks the cell down and leaves her alone to rest.

 

There's no point going directly to the conference room since the first thing everyone will do is turn and stare at him like starving puppies if he dares to step foot into the room without the tea tray in hand. By the time he makes it through the door, tray stacked carefully for balance with piles of snacks surrounding the coffee pot they seem to be fully set for a briefing, everyone ranged around the table heads down as they stare at their tablets.

 

“Tosh just finished downloading some of the data from the hand held and sent it out.” The tray barely makes it onto the table before hungry hands are already snatching from it and Ianto snags his own mug and settles back into his seat. “She's a sleeper agent.” Jack doesn't bother picking up his own tablet while he talks, even though Ianto can barely look away from the encyclopedic thoroughness of data he's thumbing through. “It all clicked when I saw the implant.”

 

“A sleeper agent? Who for?” Owen's already settled his computer back onto the desk too busy spooning up some of the leftover fruit salad from the fridge and Ianto's really going to have to place them all a breakfast order soon.

 

“No-one knows very much. They don't leave survivors. Official designation is Cell 1-1-4. They infiltrate planets, adapting their bodies, gathering intelligence, sometimes for years, watching, until they're ready to take over.”

 

“Fuck.” Cheyenne leans forward, snagging a bottle of water instead. “So, are we dealing with a legit _invasion_? Do we need to start rallying backup?”

 

“If we're lucky, she's the first. They send an advance guard to gather intel. Give them false memories so they blend in.” Jack looks at the security monitor set into the wall behind them. On it, Beth is crying in the containment cell, hands pressed to her face. “She has no idea she's not human. Her real self must have taken over briefly, killed the burglars. Self-preservation. By the time they attack, they know every single thing about the planet.” Under the table Cheyenne presses her knee against Ianto's and he reaches down to squeeze it reassuringly. “Tosh?”

 

“The implant gathers information.” Her heels click as Tosh walks towards the lights, dimming them enough to activate the screens. “Normal X-rays don't show it exists.” It's not worth thumbing through the data on his own now, not when Ianto knows Tosh already has the most pertinent bits ready to show. Already on the big screen she has two images side by side, one of the x-ray scan they walked Beth through on the way to interrogation and the other time-stamped from Owen's computer less than half an hour ago. “She's projecting a false image. It's got all this data stored inside it.” The screen fills with far more information than was sent out to them, images and pages upon pages of information flashing up on the screen before disappearing. “This is a force-field generator.” Tosh taps her tablet and the image freezes on a scan of Beth's arm. “It creates an impervious layer above the skin, just a nanometre thick. That's why you couldn't get the needle inside her.”

 

“Right, well...” Whatever snarky comment Owen was about to make melts on his tongue as he stares at the screen. “God, look, they even know about us.” Ianto doesn't have to follow Owen's finger to see the huge files flipping past too fast to do more than scan. They're all carefully assembled, each page of data tagged with one of their pictures in the upper right hand corner.

 

“It's not just us they know about.” Tosh's finger swipes across the screen, pushing away pictures of Gwen at crime scenes, the SUV dark in the background and pulls up an entirely too thorough set of blueprints for the Hub. On the screen a fairly accurate 3D rendering of almost every level of the Hub is visible. All of the archives, the loading dock entrance and tunnel, every emergency exit, entrance and even an old sealed off tunnel that Ianto managed to miss in his first few weeks combing every inch of the Hub he could.

 

“They know more about this place than I do.” It's supposed to be a joke, but there's nothing funny about it. Ianto snatches up his tablet again, flicking through the dangerously detailed blueprints furiously. “ _Nobody_ knows more than I do.” Cheyenne's hand low on his thigh pulls his eyes off the small screen.

 

“Okay, so she might be the first or there may be more of them, possibly all them with access to this information?” Cheyenne leans forward in her seat, thumb rubbing the side of Ianto's knee in agitation. “What are we gonna do about this?”

 

“For a start,” Jack turns back to the screen where Beth is slumped down onto her cot. “I think we should tell her.”


	4. Chapter 4

 

Beth stands pressed close to the glass wall of her cell as she watches the monitor of the laptop Cheyenne is holding. She's not looking well as she sways closer to the glass and then back in repulsion over and over again. Her voice is flattened by the recordings and echoes a bit in the brick and steel cells, even sharper and colder in playback than it was in real life.

 

“Kayehla janees, putaak graszh, ish nin fas du hap vac nal.”

 

“Can you turn it off, please?” She turns from the image, trembling hand pressed to her mouth and Cheyenne stops the footage for her. Beth paces back and forth, right arm flung out in front of her as she looks down at it like it's the enemy.

 

“So I killed those men?”

 

“Yes.” In her cell the woman nods once at Jack's reply.

 

“And I'm a mass-murdering alien?”

 

“Yes.” This time she doesn't agree with him, shaking her head violently, hair flipping around her face.

 

“My whole life...all my memories, they can't be fake. I know I love Mike, and my husband loves  _ me _ .”

 

“We know darlin, and no one is trying to take that.” Cheyenne steps up to the glass, resting her hand on it.

 

“So what's real?”

 

“ _Y_ _ ou're _ real. ‘Real’ isn't limited to humanity Beth. Neither is love.” Jack slides his hands into his pockets and leans against the far wall, watching as Beth drifts back towards Cheyenne, her caged cat pacing stilled as she strains to hear an answer that will make all of this not have happened. “You both fell in love, okay? That  _ happened _ . That's not fake.”

 

“But  _ I _ am! What happens when the disguise comes off? I wanted...I  _ want _ to have kids one day. Am I human enough for that? Can you  _ fix _ me? Can you make me human?” Her eyes light up at the thought and Jack pushes off the far cell with a roll of his shoulders. It feels inappropriate to crush all the hope that woman has in the world while slouching.

 

“No. Eventually, you'll activate. Your real memories will come back, and ‘Beth’ will disappear.” Her mouth trembles once before the woman behind the glass takes a deep shuddering breath and forces herself to stand a little straighter. Beth Halloran is a little bit spunky when push comes to shove.

 

“What do you mean, ‘activate’?”

 

“Once you gather enough information, you'll send it back home, and start the invasion.” She shakes her head so fast that her hair whips around her.

 

“No. There must be  _ something _ you can do. All this technology, everything you do here ... You can't keep me locked up in here forever!” Beth's vehemence trails off as neither of them say anything. The cells are silent for a long moment and Beth begins chewing anxiously on the edge of her thumbnail. “Are you going to kill me?”

 

“Beth, just because we can't make you human doesn't mean killing you is our only option.” The fact that Cheyenne is phrasing her words so carefully doesn't escape the jailed woman.

 

“That's not a no. Have you killed other...aliens?” Her voice waivers on the last word.

 

“We're not planet Earth's execution squad. Death is always a last resort, Beth. Just as if you were human.”

 

“Oh. I wish...I wish this wasn't happening.” Beth sinks her hands into her hair, gripping at the flattened strands as she slumps down onto the edge of the cot. “I'd never know. I'd just live a normal life.”

 

“Until the day of the attack.” His voice pushes her to her feet and when she comes right for him Jack steps up to the glass to speak with her.

 

“I won't do anything, I promise! I'm not that person!” She's ready to bargain, make any agreement he can come up with to save her life and it's just too early to be anyone's executioner, much less listen to her plead for her life with promises she can't keep no matter how hard she tries.

 

“I'm sorry, but you are.” Her eyes fill, welling over and Beth presses both hands hard against her mouth. It's the last thing he sees as he whips around on his heel and leaves the cell block. Behind him Cheyenne's heels click a little harder than normal as she stalks up behind him, Beth's sobs echoing behind them until the security door shuts behind them.

 

“You didn't want to stay with her?”

 

“I'm not Gwen; a little hand-holding is fine, but beyond that...” She shrugs, but doesn't look up at him.

 

“You're mad at me.” He slows his steps as the hit the stairs, letting her pass him.

 

“Well, I think that was kind of shitty of you just now.” She doesn't look over her shoulder, facing straight forward as she stomps up the stairs.

 

“So I should lie and tell her she'll be home by morning?”

 

“No, but you didn't have to leave the impression that there's nothing that can be done before we even try.”

 

“Maybe I  _ know _ that there's nothing that can be done.”

 

“Yeah, except you  _ don't _ know that or we'd already be prepping to euthanize her.” She stalks off the stairs and even her ponytail is starting to look pissed off as she begins to stomp off up the hall without him.

 

“Hey.” She's rigid when he hurries up behind her and slings his arm over her shoulder. “I'm not saying we won't look at the options, but they're gonna be slim, kiddo. Sitting down there waiting to die and getting off is better than waiting and hoping for a solution we don't find.”

 

“And is that the voice of experience?” Her voice is tart, but she hasn't shrugged away from him yet.

 

“Baby, it's exhausting not being executed as often as I have. Did I tell you about the time with the executioner, the maximum security guard, and the bottle of hyper-vodka?”

 

“Yes, trying to talk us into that awkward position that required two chairs and more handholds than we actually had available.” There she goes, the corner of her mouth turning up despite herself.

 

“Hey, if we had about seven percent less gravity or a sturdier shower bar, that would have blown your mind.”

 

Tosh and Owen are already on the work floor when they get there and apparently Chy is not the only one worried about the fate of Beth Halloran because he's barely announced that she's too dangerous to be allowed back to her old life before Toshiko speaks up.

 

“We could freeze her. Use the alien cryogenics. Wake her up if we figure out how to stop her memories from coming back.” It's not a very Toshiko plan, not enough ready-to-play power points and graphs to prove her right for one, but Jack doesn't have to look at Owen, stiff backed as he waters the few plants not in the greenhouse to know who's pushing for leniency here.

 

“So, how long are you talking about freezing her for?”

 

“As long as it takes.” Tosh shrugs. “At least she'd be alive.”

 

“Her implant would still gather information.” Ianto has apparently used the time they've been dealing with Beth to get breakfast because he comes down the stairs while Jack is speaking, his arms full of bakery bags. The glossy white bag that he settles next to Jack smells temptingly of bacon. His earpiece is live, blue light bright as he straightens up and Jack doesn't need to look to his left to see who's kept the other man plugged into the conversation.

 

“Can't we deactivate it?” Ianto manages to make it sound perfectly reasonable as he passes food around, leaving Owen's on his desk to draw the other man back towards them. Jack's not sure if they know who Owen's mourning every June, but they coddle him in their own dysfunctional Torchwood ways.

 

“I can isolate the transceiver and fry it in an EM pulse. Right now, it's not sending or receiving anything. I've checked it five times on every frequency.” Tosh perches on the edge of her chair, stirring fruit into her yoghurt.

 

“Won't that let them know we're onto them?” The doctor mumbles around a mouthful of chocolate chocolate chip.

 

“No. If we freeze her, she'll never activate and they'll never know. She just...won't be there.”

 

“What about her husband?”

 

“She'd have to disappear completely.” Jack meets the medic's eyes without apology. “No goodbyes.” He turns to Cheyenne, legs crossed neatly at the ankle as she nibbles on fruit from the take out bowl in her hands. “Good enough for you?”

 

“Better than a bullet to the head.”

 

“Good. Everyone take half an hour down, get some food in you, take a break, and then start prepping the cryogenics supplies while I set the bays up.” His waxed paper bag crinkles temptingly as he grabs it up off the desk and heads down towards the big cryo setup.

 

The Torchwood Cryogenics system, settled down on the same floor as the regular security morgue, is either a crime against technology and time or a thing of beauty and ingenuity depending on Jack's mood.

 

Today, with part of The Cell on Earth years before official first contact, no more Time Agency to reign in the run away potential time lines, and his team giving him puppy eyes for leniency, the Cryo system all but glows with benevolent goodness.

 

Also, Ianto has gone to that place that makes Jack's bacon and tomato sandwich with extra bacon on a toasted croissant and it's still mostly warm by the time he's done feeding lines and tubes into their correct places. He's manually priming the system one handedly, eating with the other when he hears Cheyenne's heels clicking down the hall. He keys in the last of the strokes and is turning around to ask what she's come all the way down to the body storage for when she steps up, her little hands wrapping around his braces as she tugs him downwards. Her tongue still has a tang of yoghurt to it as she licks across his teeth, kissing him lazily.

 

“Are you not mad, or are you just licking the taste of bacon out of my mouth?”

 

“Both.” Her lips rub against his as she kisses him again, pouting as he pulls away laughing and dangles the sandwich between them long enough to activate the priming sequence he's just spent the last ten minutes programing.

 

“Or I could give you a bite?” She doesn't go for it, and who was he kidding anyway, he's  _ much _ better than a bacon and tomato sandwich.

 

“Can't. In the last week I've eaten wedding food, big breakfasts three times, dinner on time every night  _ and _ I haven't had to chase down or run from an alien once. Our scale says I apparently ate five pounds worth of bacon and cake in a week.” She leans back, smirking as she reaches up and rubs a scarlet smudge off his mouth.

 

“You're so weird. And not at all fat.”

 

“I know, I know, and I'd like to keep it that way. Owen says he's almost ready for Beth and Ianto says to hurry up with the cryogenics because he either needs to fix the resonator or shut it down soon and either way you still need to make him a piece for it.”

 

“Well, it's going to take him about twenty minutes to shut it down, so I guess that puts you on prisoner detail with me again.”

 

“I know. I'm doing entirely too much real work around here today.” Cheyenne teases, falling into step alongside him as they turn to head out of the cryogenics bay. “Gwen needs to come home now. I don't want to do her work for another week.”

 

“Then you shouldn't have sided with the rest of them to give Gwen an extra week off for her honeymoon.”

 

Beth Halloran is curled up at the head of the cot in the corner of the cell when they come back through the secure door leading into the maximum security holding.

 

“Beth.” He's lets Cheyenne call to her softly since the woman obviously finds her the less threatening of them. “Beth we have news. It's not  _ great _ news, but you live, so it's not bad news either.” The woman stays curled at the foot of the cell's cot, face hidden in her knees but Jack can tell from the tilt of her head and the stiffening of her shoulders that Beth is hearing everything they say as he carefully explains to her how they're going to save the world without killing her.

 

“You're right. It's better than not dying, but not a lot.” Beth's voice is muffled by her hands as she scrubs them over her face roughly. “So you freeze me to buy some time and then once you've figured out how to turn me off, you thaw me out?”

 

“Just like in the movies... well, not Demolition Man. It's  _ far _ more dignified than that.” The two women share a quick smile and Cheyenne holds her hand out behind her waiting for Jack to drop the key into it. “Are you ready?”

 

“What, now?” He wonders if Beth's shaking her head deliberately, or if it's just an instinctive gesture.

 

“Yes, now.” Her eyes narrow in her tear puffy face as Beth stares at Jack. “You're still a danger Beth. That isn't changing anytime soon, which means we do this now.” The woman doesn't try to run or even struggle when Jack unlocks the cell, standing numbly as Jack locks her cuffs back together and leads her out of the cell.

 

“We had a holiday booked.” She finally breaks the silence halfway down the hall, tipping her head back, closer towards Cheyenne. “Nothing special, just a weekend away. Am I ever gonna see him again?”

 

“I don't know, sweetheart. We'll try our best for you.” Cheyenne's been half a step behind them the entire time, and she almost walks into them as Beth falters, cuffed hands jerking up to press to her temple as she hunches over.

 

“Oh!” He's careful not to step between Cheyenne and the woman all but slumped against him as he steadies Beth on her feet because she's already got her weapon out and he'd prefer it if he wasn't shot today. “Ohhh...those men...” This is what he gets for letting his team soft heart him into cryogenically freezing a threat this severe: A false construct breakdown in the middle of his hallway. “Oh, my  _ God _ , those poor men! What's happening?!”

 

“The real memory is coming back, destroying the fake human persona. The sooner we do this, the better for everyone.” At least now Beth doesn't bother arguing. In fact, she's actively assisting for the first time since her cuffs were locked around her wrist, stumbling over leaden feet as she tries to keep up with the new pace.

 

They don't have time to dawdle.

 

Owen doesn't waste time when he sees the three of them come down the stairs at a rushed clip, Beth ashy and pale as Jack helps tug her along, Cheyenne's little Colt out in her hands as she follows along behind them just out of arms reach. He pulls out the cryogenics chamber that Jack's start up sequence downstairs has primed and gets to work prepping the tubes and leads dangling over the open metal and glass casket. Beth is shaking and Jack doesn't wait for her to try and do it herself, hoisting her up onto the table. There's not enough space for his team to work with everyone on the floor and Jack heads up to the observation walkway, lining himself up to see her every twitch and jerk, Webley out and bare in his hands.

 

“Promise me something. If you can't figure out how to keep me human, then don't wake me up. Just turn the machine off. I don't...I don't want to not be me.” Owen says nothing, ignoring the woman as he bends down and unlaces her trainers, slipping them off and dropping them in the plastic bin under the table with a thump. “You. I bet you can do it.” Her eyes meet Jack's across the room. “Just don't let me hurt anyone.”

 

“You have my word.” Down on the floor Cheyenne is apologizing softly as she works a pair of small sharp scissors under the other woman's shirt and comes back out with three pieces of what used to be a very pretty purple bra.

 

“Sorry but you don't want any metal against your skin when the temperature goes down in that thing.” Beth's fingers tighten around her wedding band before she reluctantly allows Cheyenne to slide it off her hand. “I'm going to tuck your shirt in so that the rivets on your jeans don't touch your skin, okay?”

 

“It's funny, I've always had this nagging feeling like I didn't fit in. Just,” She flinches as Cheyenne slides her hands into Beth's clothing, smoothing down the shirt as far as she can. “So desperate to have a more exciting life.”

 

Toshiko walks up to Beth, fiddling with the settings on the micro EMP generator.

 

“I'm going to hit the transceiver with an EM pulse. You won't feel anything. It'll take out the force-field generator, too, I’m afraid, so I'll have to fry them both.”

 

“Do it.” Beth shoves her arms out. “I don't want to be invincible.”

 

“After that I'm gonna sedate you.” Owen waves a needle in her direction. “Then we'll freeze you. It'll be just like going to sleep, only a bit colder.”

 

“Okay.” She looks around for a friendly face before taking a deep breath. “Okay.” Toshiko starts the device and begins sweeping it slowly along the thin skin of Beth's forearm. On it, the green lights across the top strobe back and forth as the generator sends tightly packed alternating bursts of electromagnetic pulses at the bio-mechanical circuitry built into Beth's body. It probably doesn't hurt, but Beth sits uncomfortably still. Her face twists as if she's feeling  _ some _ semi-unpleasant sensation, even if it isn't exactly pain.

 

“Done.” Owen steps up, swabs the inside of her arm quickly and the needle slides into her veins neatly.

 

“There you go. Now take a deep breath, breath out as hard as you can, and then count back from ten for me.”

 

Beth manages to exhale before slipping under and now Jack does jog back down the stairs because it's not that he doesn't trust Owen to administer the organic antifreeze components, but the doctor just doesn't have the background knowledge to adjust the ratios on the fly for an unfamiliar species if any of the vital readings goes south.

 

“Okay, I'm heading upstairs to start everyone's paperwork. The sooner it's filed the sooner we can go back and finish the last of our vacation.” Cheyenne brushes her fingertips against the small of his back as she squeezes past Jack in the crowded space.

 

“Do my post-it for me!” Owen calls, eyes down on the catheter he's feeding up through the radial aorta in Beth's arm.

 

“Don't worry about your post-it. Just hurry up so we can go.”

 

Placing the catheter is a fast job. Jack watches Owen's brow furrow as the doctor threads the thin tube through the fluttering valve, using a sharp black and white x-ray image on a nearby monitor and some good timing, and reminds himself to fit newer scope equipment for the man to work with into the next budget. The anti-freeze compound from the cryogenics pod that Jack is feeding into the IV Owen hands him is nothing nearly as simple as it sounds, but calling it that is better than explaining over and over again how it prevents membrane blowouts on the cellular level. It's a distilled mix of alien gases being pumped through Beth's blood vessels and it's slightly thicker than blood when it begins moving viscously through the thin tube at Owen's nod. The medic is watching the real time image of Beth's heart beating away carefully as the liquefied gas hits the pulsing muscle.

 

This is the part that kills most of the people who die in cryo, as the heart stutters and stumbles at the addition of the thick, cold, liquid gas.

 

Beth's heart barely falters as it starts pushing the bio-freeze agent through her system and Jack feels comfortable enough to creep the flow valve up a little higher.

 

“Alright.” Jack watches as the prep tank's gauge red-lines fifteen minutes later. “Let's get her in.” It's a quick up and over, lifting Beth Halloran into the small chamber that will pressurize until the previously inert liquidized gas is forced into her cells, protecting them from rupturing before flash freezing her. He's as careful as he can be, arranging her body so that she's lined up in the mesh sling that holds her in place, limbs neatly arranged to give Owen access to the stint running up Beth's arm. The doctor is done in minutes, all lines hooked up to the cryo pod and Jack seals the chamber, cycling it on. The lights along the lid flicker and strobe as the pod begins to receive the data points Jack inputted downstairs. Once the pod reaches the main unit it will cycle on, filling with the gaseous version of what's pumping through her veins before flash freezing her.

 

“There we go. Good job today everyone.” Jack leans back, stretching to pop his back with a groan of satisfaction. “Let's get her sent down to the vault and get this written up.”

 

“I've got her, Sir.” Ianto jogs down the stairs, slipping his suit jacket back on over sleeves still neatly folded back over his forearms. “I need you to start on that replacement part. I'd like to know the resonator is working  _ before _ we cycle the rift monitor back on in the morning.”

 

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

Jack's hunched over a stool at Suzie's fabrication station, welding goggles perched uselessly on top of his head as he solders a mishmash of circuits from different civilizations and time zones into something that will hopefully handle the kind of power the resonator is pumping out, when the alarm begins going off. Over head the lights all begin to strobe and flicker violently and Jack watches Ianto freeze halfway across the floor, turning sharply on his heel away from the workstations and heads for the main control panel on the rift monitor.

 

“Can someone tell me what the hell is going on?” He kills the power to the small torch in his hand, dropping it into its cradle. Upstairs Cheyenne is peering out of his office door and Owen's got a torch in hand and on as he comes up from the med bay at a run.

 

“Oh Shit.” It's rarely good when Ianto curses in front of the security feed.

 

“What happened?” He crosses directly to Toshiko's station where she's already pulling the footage from Ianto's feed, raising his voice to be heard over the din.

 

“Beth's gone,” the younger man says in annoyance, as if Jack can't see the warped metal that was the door of vault zero-zero-seven hanging from twisted hinges.

 

“I thought she was frozen!” Jack growls through clenched teeth. He should have just executed her as soon as he knew what she was. He should have known better.

 

“She was!” Owen snarls back. “All her vitals were at zero and you saw it too!”

 

“Checking systems, command history...” The keyboard clacks under Tosh's fingers and on one of the far screens Jack watches footage as Beth falls out of the kicked open drawer and vomits up a slick jellied pile of what he's pretty sure is the bio-freeze before stumbling to her feet and out of the cryogenics morgue.

 

“What did she do? Is it a virus, a lockdown?” Tosh reads much faster than he does and Jack is stuck trying to skim data that she's is flying through before she navigates away to something else.

 

“No, she just turned off the lights.” She makes a small flourish before hitting send and overhead the lights all go off completely before coming back on one level at a time from the top down.

 

“What is it with her and light bulbs?” No one laughs at his quip, and he leans closer in as Tosh skims through the camera feeds until it stops on one of the cog doors standing ajar, it's emergency light flashing brightly as the sirens overhead continue to scream. The sirens cut off suddenly and Jack pats Tosh's shoulder in thanks as Ianto jogs over, Cheyenne trailing behind him.

 

“She went through the tunnels,” Tosh says for Cheyenne's benefit until Jack slides aside, making room for the woman to see the monitor around him.

 

“Time to change the locks again,” Ianto grumbles.

 

“She knew everything about this place.” And yet it's still standing, something his team hasn't considered from the expressions on their faces as he breaks it down for them. “It was all in her arm. The tunnels, layout, security codes. She could've shut us down, blown us up – anything!”

 

“Why didn't she?” In her seat Tosh squirms uncomfortably as everyone crowds closer into her space, watching her tab through the security footage as it tracks Beth's trail.

 

“Don't know yet. Tosh, you switched off the transceiver?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“Well, I was until you asked.” Quickly the rest of the team backs away as Tosh rolls her chair to her other monitor. “Unless it was another false image.”

 

“Hang on, hang on, hang on.” Apparently Owen's toes are less important than his train of thought as he leans directly over Tosh to reach her keyboard, framing her in his arms and completely missing the flush of her cheeks. “Everything about her was a lie. All of her vital signs were a false image. She can fool the equipment. She can tell it what we're expecting to see. So, you know, she gets scared and it projects an increased heart rate. We try and freeze it and it does the opposite.”

 

“Simulating that much information would need a huge amount of energy.” Owen steps back and Tosh rolls her shoulders. “No wonder she had a big electromagnetic field.”

 

“Well, that's why the lights blew every time she got upset.”

 

“So, what's she doing? Did we activate her?” Their heads all turn as one to look at him and Jack shakes his no, hooking his thumbs in his belt loops as he thinks.

 

“She couldn't be activated. If she was, we'd all be dead. We took her off the network. She has some other agenda.”

 

“Her husband.” Cheyenne's voice is soft and sure. “She's heading to the hospital to be with him.”

 

“Well, now she’s there to say goodbye. Right, let's go get her. Ianto, you're with me...”

 

“Not unless you think the resonator should be left open and off for longer than it already has been.” The Welshman jerks his thumb over his shoulder at the still dismantled and vital bit of the Rift Manipulator.

 

“Damn, you're right. Get that slapped back together as fast as you can. Tosh, give him a hand; the new part's over on the bench cooling.” Owen's got a spatter of blood up by his elbow that says he was most likely wrists deep in their corpse when the alarms went off and really Jack needs someone Beth relates to. Honestly, he needs Gwen and her ability to empathize with every bloody thing under the sun on this one, but Cheyenne is just going to have to keep being enough. “Swap your shoes kiddo, I guess it's you and me this time.”

 

“I've got a spare pair in the back of my truck.” She stops to snatch her purse off the top of Gwen's desk where it's been sitting all morning, plucking the scanner Ianto's holding out for her from his hand. “Let's go.”

 

There's a pile up on the way to the hospital and Jack takes the SUV down the side streets as fast as the sirens will clear the way. Next to him Cheyenne has taken out the same small scanner Tosh used earlier to disrupt Beth's implant, carefully following Tosh's instructions in her ear as she downloads an upgrade that will let it see through the false signals, according to the technician on the other end of the secure line.

 

“If she's activated, you stay behind me.” He can see the building over the upcoming hill.

 

“Her force field isn't working…probably isn't working. If she's activated I'm shooting her in the face. Now shut up, I'm concentrating.” They rip into the parking lot, blocking the fire lane as the two of them tumble out of the vehicle at a run. Hospital security has fallen in next to them before they're more than fifty feet through the door and they drop back at Jack's snapped command except for one man who runs along ahead of them anyway, swiping his security badge at every set of locked doors.

 

They can hear Beth before they see her, her voice shrill with hysterics as the call light in the nurses’ station begins to blink.

 

“No one goes in that room! Keep them there!” The security guard peels away, heading towards the nurses’ station where a stocky woman in bright pink scrubs is trying to follow them.

 

“Oh, my God! Oh, my...Somebody!” Beth's holding the call button, slamming her hand against it frantically as she screams for help. On the bed her husband has both hands pressed against his abdomen, eyes blown wide in shock as he gasps for breath. She throws her hands into the air when the two of them burst through the door and the bio-mechs in her forearm are lit up red.

 

“Sorry...I was just...it was an _accident_. I just wanted to say goodbye.” Beth hits the ground on her knees, sniffling with her hands still in the air and Jack doesn't have to look too closely at the bright red puddles of blood spilling through knit fingers into Beth’s husband’s lap to know he has to get Beth neutralized and someone in here if there's any chance for the man at all.

 

“She's got a weapon system built into her arm.”

 

“I guessed that. Keep your arms up Beth. Don't move.” And because he was obviously speaking to hear the smooth and sexy tones of his own voice when he told her to stay back, Cheyenne takes the scanner and runs it along the length of Beth's outreached arm slowly until it chimes twice. “Clear.”

 

“It's getting worse. She's losing control. We need to contain her fast.”

 

“Come on, Beth. Let's get you back.” Cheyenne shoves the scanner back into the purse over her shoulder.

 

“No! Mike!” Beth's crying as Cheyenne slaps heavy weevil cuffs on her thin wrists, struggling to yank the sobbing woman to her feet. On the bed Mike Halloran is reaching for his wife with one bloody hand and Beth tries scrambling on her knees towards the bed.

 

“Come on!”

 

“No!”

 

“Come _on_! Get _up_!” Beth screams in frustration as Jack crosses the floor and wraps his hands around her biceps, yanking her to her feet and pulling her towards the door.

 

“You're clear.” Cheyenne's burst out of the room, already waving nurses in as he rushes Beth out of the way. “Come on, in here!” There's blood on Beth's hands and she keeps stumbling over her own feet looking at it. Jack keeps her tucked under his left arm and herds her against the wall as they run down the hall, minimizing her chances to use that weapon arm of hers again, accidentally or not.

 

“Tosh?” He knocks his headset on with a shrug of his shoulder against his ear. “We got her. It's all over. We're on our way...”

 

The windows all blow in at once, a bright shattering sound that manages to stand out sharp and clear against the frightened screaming of Beth and Cheyenne, and only highlights the low roaring boom of the explosion happening outside close enough that it's blown everyone in the hall off their feet.

 

Jack scrambles up, tiny slices on his face and arms healing shut as fast as they can bleed. At his feet Beth is pressed against the wall, cuffed hands up by her face as she covers her ears and screams in terror.

 

“What’s going on?!” Tosh is yelling in his ear even as Jack crosses the blown-in glass, yanking Cheyenne to her feet.

 

“You okay?”

 

“Yeah...I think so.” She doesn't bother reaching up to try and brush the glistening glass shards out of her hair, flipping on her comm instead as she scans the ruined hall full of crying and discombobulated people with her weapon out.

 

“What the hell was that?”

 

“Petrol tanker.” Tosh's voice is distracted as Jack reaches down, jerking Beth back onto her feet. “Looks like someone wanted to take out the M4 link road for some r...No! It's not the road. There's an underground fuel pipeline. It's a special fuel supply for the military. They use it in emergencies.”

 

Around them the hospital is bursting to life, nurses and orderlies sprinting around with wheelchairs and gurneys, rushing patients back to rooms and calling in serious voices about incoming ambulances to A&E. Jack ignores them, listening carefully as his team starts reading off the rapid fire incoming news of the murder of the city coordinator.

 

“He takes charge of the city in case of major emergencies.” Ianto's voice is slowed as he skims down the incoming police reports the way he has a thousand times. “He has all the security protocols.”

 

“They're putting all the pieces in place.” This is no advance guard mission. Beth is part of a fully operational cell and Jack shoves the bound woman at Cheyenne. “Take her.” He sprints for the door, leaving Cheyenne to yank the blubbering woman along behind her while Jack pulls the SUV directly up onto the sidewalk in the pickup zone, clearing the emergency area for the ambulances that he can already hear roaring up towards the old brick building as fast as they dare. “Tosh, Owen, it's starting. It's happening right now!”

 

There's a tall plume of greasy black smoke billowing up from the east where the overpass to the M4 used to be, flames jumping high enough that Jack can see hints and flickers of fire in the distance. It's because he's watching it in the rear view that he misses the second explosion, although he clearly hears the electronic feedback whine directly in his ear as the secure Torchwood line goes dead. He slings himself out of the idling truck as Cheyenne stumbles in the doorway of the building, ripping her ear piece out with a startled shriek.

 

“It's not just her. She's part of a cell, and they've activated.” Cheyenne blanches, yanking her phone out of her bra and attempting to dial as Jack wraps his hand around Beth's bicep, yanking her out of the way as a crew of orderlies come running past towards the ambulances lining up near the A&E entrance. “Tell me how to stop it!”

 

“It can't be.” Beth lets her legs go, crumpling to the ground despite his grip and he's losing her to shock, damn the 114 and their overly precise programing.

 

“Think!” Beth's eyes are drifting until he shakes her sharply.

 

“Beth, look at me.” Cheyenne hunches down, grabbing the other woman's face between her palms when Beth doesn't move fast enough. “Look at me! How do we stop this?”

 

“I don't know. I'm cut off from the cell. I don't know what the mission _is_. I’m sorry.” Sirens are heavy in the air as ambulances start diverting towards the bigger hospitals. They're doing triage fast and dirty inside, stabilizing and moving burns out as fast as they get them in; off to be airlifted to the burn trauma center in Swansea from a hospital big enough to have a helicopter pad.

 

“What about your implant? How did you get out of Torchwood?”

 

“The technology is part of me. I can switch it on, I can use the tools.” She looks down at her arm in dazed disgust, but Beth is coming back around.

 

“Can you do that _now_? Can you trace the rest of your cell, Beth?” The words aren't out of Cheyenne's mouth before Beth begins shaking her head wildly, flinching backwards.

 

“No! What if it goes wrong?”

 

“Fuck you _and_ wrong! _This_ is wrong!” Cheyenne flings her hands out, gesturing towards the thick billows of smoke in the air and the cries of the injured in the air around them. “If you don't, Beth, more people will die, not just maybe your husband. You want to be human? Act like it and help us save our fucking planet.”

 

“Okay.” Beth nods once, holding her left hand over her right forearm, eyes closed and head tilted to the side in concentration. “There's only one left. I can track him.”

 

“Let's go. Come on.” They fall in step with him, breaking for the SUV and clambering inside. Jack whips the truck around, falling into line between two ambulances, their sirens just as loud as his as they tear off away from the hospital. “Alright Beth, where to?”

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

It is deeply satisfying to fasten the last of the dangling cords to their correct connectors and close up the outside panel of the Rift Manipulator, the newly repaired Sub-Etheric Resonator plugged into place and ready to be powered on. Ianto's listening absently through his ear piece to Jack as the immortal man tells Tosh that Beth is already back in custody and that they're all on their way back. He flips the main breaker to power everything back up and throw it all back into standby and has a terrifying moment of doubt that he's blown them all up as the floor pitches beneath him, knocking things over and drawing cries from the rest of his teammates. The iron of the spiral stairs is still lightly thrumming with the vibrations that shook the building as Ianto comes down them at a jog. In his ear Cheyenne is muttering vile things under her breath in a shaky voice while Jack's snapping at them, demanding answers over the open line.

 

“I'm looking now.” Ianto heads over to his own station, jumping into the same search of all emergency frequencies that Tosh is running so he can see it too. “Got it. Petrol tanker. Looks like someone wanted to take out the M4 link road for some r...no! It's not the road. There's an underground fuel pipeline.” Tosh looks at Owen, too busy watching her over screen over her shoulder to see the data on his own workstation. “It's a special fuel supply for the military. They use it in emergencies.”

 

“Not anymore. Hold on.” Owen turns to his own workstation as it chimes once, a suspicious death flag going directly to the medic's system. “I've got a report coming through. Patrick Grainger's been murdered.” Ianto swaps his screens quickly, pulling his eyes from the already staggering figures of damage estimated and injuries accrued to swap over to incoming alerts, pulling up the live feed of police chatter on mute and skimming through it as Mainframe translates at speed.

 

“Who?”

 

“Leader of the council, stabbed several times in the chest, and once in the forehead.” Owen jerks a thumb over his shoulder towards the open body down in the morgue. “Sound familiar?

 

“He's also the city co-ordinator.” He interjects since no one else seems to have noticed that pertinent bit of information or even begun running a full search on the man. “Takes charge of the city in case of major emergencies. Has all the security protocols.”

 

“Well, how do you know that?” Owen sounds exasperated, mostly because he's never mastered reading more than one feed at a time.

 

“I know everything.” He gives Owen an innocent smirk before gesturing at his monitor. “And it says so on the bottom of the screen.”

 

“Tosh, Owen, it's star...” The second explosion is just as alarming as the first. In her aerie Myfanwy screeches and something, hopefully from the galley and not Owen's mad scientist lab in the back corner of the green house, falls and shatters behind them. Jack's voice cuts off suddenly, replaced by a high droning whine that has everyone scrambling to turn off ear pieces.

 

“What the hell was that?” He grinds the palm of his hand against his ear futilely, trying to erase the whining echo from the disrupted line.

 

“They've taken out the communications building.” Tosh's fingers are flying across the keys. “That explosion just now brought it all down. Everything's out. Landlines, mobile connections, internet connections...”

 

“ _We're_ still online,” Owen says as he tugs out his phone and immediately begins to try and dial as if to prove Tosh wrong.

 

“ _We_ run an alien up-link to Torchwood dedicated satellites. They'd have to bring down the satellite or blow up the rift monitor to take the Mainframe offline.” She gives Owen a dirty look as the man curses his no signal screen and continues to try and dial. Ianto gives half an ear to the bickering behind him as he begins digging through the terabytes of data ripped from Beth's arm unit.

 

“Well you said we have internet; hook us up to one of those internet phone lines and call Jack back!”

 

“Certainly Owen. I can absolutely waste the next however many minutes configuring a V.O.I.P line to run on alien software, but we _still_ cannot call Jack because _Jack_ is not connected to our internet!”

 

“All of our phones are.”

 

“Yes, because it's carried by wireless signals that aren't being transmitted outside of the Hub!”

 

“So you can't just hook something up?” Ianto turns away from his screen slowly as Tosh all but growls in rage.

 

“No, I can't just hook something up! The entire telephone network is down!”

 

“What about a mobile connection?”

 

“The entire telephone network is down!” It's hard not laugh as Tosh slows her voice down insultingly slow and Ianto leaves the scans running, searching for a combination of Grainger, explosion, and communications in the off hope that any part of their plan is unencrypted or even organized in a recognizable and linked way, coming up the stairs before Owen drives Tosh to pulling off her shoe and stabbing him with it.

 

“Mobiles, landlines, tin cans with bits of string. Everything. Absolutely everything. No phones, phones all broken.” He holds his pinky and thumb up to his face just to watch Owen snarl. “Hello? Anyone there? No, ‘cause the phones aren't working.” Ianto watches Owen's face twist as he struggles against the urge to argue with them and loses.

 

“What about we try...”

 

“There is no way of getting in touch with Jack! No _. Way_!” Tosh is ready to either rip out her own hair or choke Owen from the expression on her face when there's a static-y burst of sound from the far corner, over where Jack hangs out when he's down on the main floor. They turn together and Tosh sees it first, running for an old CB radio behind what used to be Jack's desk once upon a time as the man's voice comes over the air.

 

“Tosh, Owen, can you hear me?”

 

“Jack!” She yanks the receiver up, fumbling it before she gets the button pressed down. “Thank God. What's happening?”

 

“There's a cell, it's active. Four including Beth; two are dead. We're tracking the last guy now. If we can get to him before he does anything, we can stop this.”

 

“What can I do?” They crowd around the radio, waiting for instructions and Ianto keeps his clenched fists tucked in the crook of his arms. He should have left the bloody resonator down and gone with Jack when the man first called for him. Instead he's stuck uselessly in the Hub listening to Jack reeling off the coordinates they're racing towards with a potentially hostile alien in the backseat and a definitely hostile one at their destination.

 

“He's heading for an abandoned farm just outside the city. I need to know what's out there.” Jack's voice crackles over the airwaves. Call me when you've got something.” The radio goes silent as Jack takes his fingers off the call button and Ianto's already on his way back to his station.

 

“No.” Tosh heads him off, pointing towards the stairs as she presses a post-it into his hand with the coordinates Jack just read them scrawled across it. “Head to the archives and find any maps or mentions of the area. If there are any, you'll find them fastest.”

 

The secret to the archives is knowing how to work the ledger. Ianto isn't sure how the thing functions, something about psychic paper that probably just means Jack doesn't know either, but he knows how to work it. Thankfully he's also _good_ at it because it's the _only_ way to find anything from the long gaps and decades when the Hub didn't bother employing any sort of archivist at all.

 

He keeps the ledger on the old scarred desk under the intercom near the main entrance of the archives. It's a high spindle legged thing, the kind he associates with pictures of Bob Cratchett and he slides onto the much newer bar stool pulled up to it and flips the heavy cover open, picking up the stylus with its heavy ornate barrel and scrawling the coordinates across the top of the page.

 

His strokes sit on the page like regular ink but directly underneath them a list of case files, rows, and sections begin filling the page. Anything to do with those coordinates are listed and he doesn't wait for them to finish listing before scrawling a command to sort by date, frowning down at the paltry seven listings, none more recent than 1940,  as they shuffle themselves on the page.

 

"Odd." The Rift is, in its own way, predictable. It has patterns in growth, fluctuations, and activity and as far as he knows, few if any of those patterns are sporadic enough to randomly touch this area seven time in sixty years and then never again. Ianto scrawls the case numbers on a post-it and takes off down the aisles to find them.

 

The seven files seem to make up only two cases, neither or which actually have anything to do with the co-ordinates outside of a couple of interviews that took place near the area and then a handwritten account in an old leather diary that Ianto plucks from the unsorted mess exactly where the ledger told him it would be. It was the most likely file to begin with and the age worn map folded in half and tucked inside the cover points directly to an abandoned coal mine on the far end of the farm's land. It's the newest of the files from 1940, written in reference to relocating a non-human alien that had been settled into the mine there as a Knocker after the army closed the site down. There's nothing else available no matter how Ianto phrases his request and he shuts the ledger with a clap, jogging back up the stairs with his nose in the pages, scouring for any reason for an invasive force to make an abandoned farm with a dried out coal vein as important a target as blowing up a military supply line and crippling the communications network.

 

"This is as close as they go." He hefts the cracked leather book into sight as he rounds the corner back up to the work floor. "There used to be a coal mine in the cliff. The Army sealed it off in the forties; doesn't say why."

 

"Let me see if I can get into the military files." Tosh flicks her hair back out of her way and Ianto folds the map carefully back into place, watching as Tosh and her homemade systems blow through the alerts, restrictions, and firewalls like old cobwebs. "Come on guys." The corner of her mouth quirks upwards in satisfaction as they watch the digits on her code breaker flip rapidly into the correct password sequence. "That wasn't even difficult. You disappoint me."

 

"It's almost obscene what you do to security systems." She hears his mutter, flashing him a smug grin over her shoulder before turning back to the contents of restricted files scrolling rapidly across the screen. What she sees there quickly wipes the satisfaction off her face, leaving her pale and gripping the desk tightly with bloodless fingers.

 

"Oh God."

 

"What is it?" Jack's voice crackles across the radio.

 

"The mineshaft. The military are using it for storage. Nuclear warheads. Ten of them and nobody's supposed to know. Not even us." Tosh's voice has all but faded out, faint with incredulity by the time she's done speaking and Owen is gripping the CB mic so hard that he forgets to take his fingers off the trigger to receive for several seconds.

 

"...left the key under the doormat." Jack's voice comes back across the line again as the medic shakes himself and loosens the death grip on the microphone. "All you need to do is walk in and take over." Whatever Beth says is lost to the background noise of the SUV speeding down the highway.

 

"Please tell me you can stop this Jack." Tosh's voice is shaking and Ianto barely hears Jack's flippant remark about not feeling a thing, already halfway across the Hub floor towards the desk with his car keys in the top drawer.

 

"Oi! World's ending, where are you fucking off to!?" Owen drops the line on Jack's singing of his own praises, stepping into Ianto's way.

 

"Ten nuclear warheads and this is the only place in Cardiff that might standup to the blast. I'm going to get my son."

 

"And who's going to work the bloody ledger while you're fighting cross town in the middle of the cluster fuck above ground?" He pushes past Owen, spinning with fist cocked back as the other man grabs his arm and stops him, only to drop it at the solemn serious look in the doctor's eyes. "They're already about ten minutes away from that mine. You won't make it across town through two detours and back before they get there. You won't make it  _there_. Now you can stay and do your bloody job and maybe we all survive, or you can go in die in your car halfway there because we didn't know how to work the ledger." Numbness is the only response he has as he lets Owen steer him back towards Tosh and the computers flashing their continuous emergency alerts across the screens.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because Tuesday was my birthday, I'm posting chapters 7 as well as 8 today.

The Hub cuts him off mid-sentence and Jack shrugs, tossing the hand radio into Cheyenne's lap.

 

“Radio for backup. Get on band eighty and then tune in to three-point-six-six-three. Give your Torchwood code and hail up UNIT. Get them on standby.” They're not going as fast as he wants to, but they're going as fast as he dares to push the truck. He's rolled the SUV before, the body armor makes it prone to tipping on narrow roads, and it's not an experience he wants to repeat.

 

He's white-knuckling the truck down the center of the road, straddling both lanes with the sirens as loud as they'll go, listening with half an ear as Cheyenne and some kid probably learning to use the radio for the first time run them up the ranks quickly just by repeating 'Torchwood and Nuclear bombs' until they get high enough along to hear a voice Jack recognizes. He rattles off his authorization number and spends four very efficient minutes arranging with UNIT to have every weapons system on the docked Valiant, including the new weapons systems being installed, trained on the skies above the United Kingdom.

 

If they don't make it there in time, UNIT has one chance to blow the warheads at the zenith of their flight before they turn and start bringing their payload back towards the ground. It'll be ugly, but it's better than the alternative. Probably. There are UNIT caps scrambling for their choppers now, Jack knows, and even eight minutes away by helicopter they still won't beat Jack to the base he can see before him. They won't beat the Cell member to the bombs.

 

There are dead soldiers scattered in the road and the grass next to it as Jack blows through the smashed in barrier. In the backseat Beth has drawn herself up into her seat as small as she can make herself but Cheyenne has gone from fear pale to a kind of terrified rage that leaves her flushed and wide eyed. The SUV tips dangerously as he throws them too quickly around a curve to avoid the body in the middle of the road that he thinks might still be breathing. Behind him Beth screams, head cracking roughly against the back window as her arm begins a series of unsettlingly fast beeps.

 

“So, I'd really like to hear about how we have a plan now.” Cheyenne's voice trembles as he yanks on the emergency break to skid them in a tight curve before jamming it back open despite the grinding of the gears as he does. His mechanic is going to quit on him any day now if he keeps bringing the truck in like this.

 

“Yeah, but it isn't going to be pretty. Put the safety on your gun and brace yourself.” They can see the alien a couple hundred meters in front of them, sprinting for the opening security gates built into the cliff side, klaxons and sirens piercing the air around them.

 

“How are we going to stop him, Jack?” She already knows, Jack can see it from the way she's drawn her shoulders up and pressed herself as far back into the seat as she can, eyes squinting shut as he rides the gas to the floor.

 

“Like this.” The Cell member has turned and actually draws its arm back as if to attack the SUV when the grill smashes into him at seventy. The impact crumples the man almost in half, smashing his face into the hood before throwing him through the air away from the black cavern. The brakes scream as Jack stomps down on them, skidding the car away from the cliff side and yanking the e-break again when it's not enough, bringing them to a rubber burning stop too far past the battered body trying to drag itself towards the bunker. Jack throws himself out of the truck, leaving Cheyenne to fumble her way out behind him. From the corner of his eye he can see Cheyenne herding Beth along ahead of her, Tosh's scanner gripped just as tightly in her left hand as her gun is in her right.

 

The force field surrounding the Cell member has kept him together despite the force of impact, but Jack can see the obvious damage he's wrought as he kicks the wounded alien over onto its back and everything from the chest down rolls slowly over as dead weight.

 

“This wasn't supposed to happen today.” The Cell member glares up at him as Jack pulls his Webley, barrel aimed squarely between the eyes. “How do we stop it?” Cheyenne is warming up the scanner and he's turning to take it from her when he sees the horror in her eyes less than a second before the impact knocks the words from him. “Chy...”

 

Jack hates getting stabbed.

 

There aren't a lot of good ways to die, but even if there were, stabbing would never be one of them. The thick bone spur hits him in the chest hard enough to knock his breath out before the tip punches through him, cracking ribs and tearing into the bottom of his lung. He feels the organ collapse and crumples forward around the weapon, hands convulsing around the forearm of the alien whose arm has just burst through Jack's back.

 

“ _Jack_!” Cheyenne screams for him, voice breaking and he forces his head up, panting through bloody teeth. He hates it when they miss the heart, because _this_ is something he can live through but healing it is going to hurt like hell.

 

“Doesn't matter. You can't stop us.” The alien twists it arm and Jack grabs it tighter, keeping him from pulling the weapon free and turning it on Cheyenne as she drops to her knees next to them, fumbling over the disarming sequence as she takes too shallow shaky pants in through her mouth. “We know what your weaknesses are.” The alien gives an equally blood flecked grin to Jack as he cuts his eyes towards the woman trying and failing to disarm his weapons system next to them. “We know who you are, Jack Harkness. We know all about you, and Torchwood. We got a lot of information before you switched her off.” Beth recoils from her teammate as it looks at her. “You'll be factored into our plans.”

 

“Oh?” He's voice is thin as he gasps for air. “Chy?”

 

“Nearly there. I've got it, I swear I've got it.” Her voice shakes, but her hands are steadier as her nails clack off the screen. It chimes as it does its work and Jack grits his teeth, starting to pull himself off the softening spike thrust through him before it becomes a much wider, more painful human forearm. “He's done.”

 

Tosh is going to murder Cheyenne for the way she tosses the scanner aside, hooking her arms under his and yanking him backwards off the warping limb.

 

“Ohhh!” He can't keep himself from crying out as they stumble and her shoulder slams into shattered bone. There are spots on the edge of his vision as he squares his feet under himself, watching the alien force his arm back into its blade shape.

 

“Don't bother, your transmitter's dead.” The lung is already mostly healed, inflating enough to speak easily anyway. “And so’s your force-field.”

 

“You're lying.” He staggers forward, planting his boot on the alien's swollen stomach as it tries to draw its arm back again.

 

“Oh, yeah?” He angles the barrel down and fires, punching a hole through the man under his boot in exactly the same place he's slowly knitting back together. To the side Beth muffles her cries poorly in her fist as she turns away from him. “Factor that into your plans.” He grits his teeth as his ribs begin grinding against themselves as they realign and considers shooting the man again. Healing makes him mean. “Now, when are the others coming?”

 

“They're already here.” He almost doesn't hear the beeping of the detonator over the roar of the helicopters cresting over the cliff side and appearing suddenly on the horizon, but even without having seen one before, it's pretty easy to guess what the last Cell member in holding triumphantly in his fist as he chokes on his own blood. “I won't let you take me.”

 

“Run!” He's healed enough to stay on his feet but Jack has no idea if he's going to be able to outrun this bomb as he turns on his heel, herding Cheyenne and Beth ahead of him as they all head as far into the field as they can. Overhead the pilots all have the right idea, heading up and away as fast as they can turn. Jack has no idea what the payload is for one of the alien disks but he desperately hopes that even if none of them can outrun it, it's not enough to set off the weapons under their feet.

 

The explosion is small and the force of the aftershock merely hits him in the back like being kicked with a flaming boot. His stumbling run isn't enough to keep him from tumbling to the ground as the shock wave hits him, undoing all the half healed growth his body's been hastily cobbling together. From where he’s crumpled on the ground he watches Beth and Cheyenne stumble but stay on their feet as a much dissipated rush of hot air reaches them far ahead of him. He curls around himself in the grass, gagging on the bloody mess foaming up in the back of his throat as he gasps for air. The down draft from the helicopters landing en-mass around them jostles him painfully until the motors cut with a whine. Cheyenne and Beth reach him first, having doubled back as soon as the shock wave passed, and he clenches his fists tightly and presses them against his forehead as Cheyenne rolls him off of his bleeding side and into her lap.

 

“On your knees. _Now._ ” Beth drops at their side, fingers laced behind her head at Cheyenne's barked command and steady weapon. Cheyenne’s fingers brush his mouth, tips bloody when she pulls them away. “What do I do? Are you okay? I don't know...”

 

“I'm fine.” He's healing faster than normal, tissues still lit from the first injury with the vortex stuff that heals him, mending him so fast that his body doesn't know how to react to the sensation other than leaving him shaking and damn near helpless with the sensation screaming along all his nerves that something is _wrong_ with no way to stop it.

 

“Okay. You're fine. Okay.” She nods too fast, pressing her palm over the half healed wound. “I'm not...You're not lying, right? Cause I don't know what to tell all of these people if you die.”

 

“I'm not dying.” Around them red caps are swarming towards the open missile silo and heading towards them at a run. “Close my coat.” Her fingers shake as she forces the brass buttons into the holes, covering the knitting flesh up away from UNIT eyes. He stalls the medical team that kneels down next to him long enough that his ribs are mostly back into position by the time they start pressing down painfully.

 

“Stop it, you're hurting him.” Cheyenne snaps before he can, turning her attention away from where she's refusing to surrender Beth to scold the two soldiers ignoring Jack's attempts to shoo them off somewhere else. “It's bruised. He's _fine_. Go see if anyone's alive on the road. One of those bodies was still trying to breathe when we drove past.”

 

“I'm fine.” He undoes his coat, bunching up the hem of his shirt so that it covers the fist sized hole in the middle and shows them the deep black and blues covering half of his torso. “Bruised. She's serious, we might have seen a survivor in the middle of the access road coming in. Go find him.” They nod, snapping off two quick salutes and sprinting across the grassy field towards the bulk of the armed forces. Jack takes as deep a breath as he can and pushes up onto his feet, refastening his coat as he walks. “That woman right there is a Torchwood informant.” Beth is too scared to cry, trembling in the grass with her hands on her head and eyes screwed as tightly shut as she can squeeze them to block out the semi-circle of guns aimed at her head. “Put the guns away. Now who's in charge here?”

 

It's the fastest hand-off he's done with UNIT in decades. He confirms the death, arranges for a tow when their truck absolutely refuses to go into reverse, and hijacks one of the army trucks when the commanding officer on scene won't hand over one of the UNIT vehicles instead. Nuclear weapons are not, thankfully, anywhere in his job description and Jack is glad for that as he slides into the passenger side of the truck, slumping back in the seat with a groan when Cheyenne takes the keys from him and slides behind the wheel.

 

“I fucking hate my job right now, you know that, right?” Her voice is shaking as she scoots the seat as far forward as she can and takes the four wheeler off through the grass, cutting wide around the entire cluster filling much of the available road space.

 

“But you're so good at it.” He chuckles. “You're very versatile for a specialist you know.”

 

“Stop laughing Jack. I'm not kidding.” Her knuckles are white on the wheel when he cracks his eyes enough to see them. “This is...”

 

“You were great.” He reaches across the seat, fumbling with eyes drifting shut to rub her knee.

 

“I was not great. I have spent this entire fucking time since the second the fucking windows blew out freaked out and trying not to cry. I'm not crying now, because I blew _way_ past that level of freaked out about the time Tosh said ' _nuclear warheads_ ', but I am far more freaked out than I look and sound right now, do you understand me? I'm a fucking linguist Jack. I should not end up in accidental encounters like this! We obviously need more people.”

 

“You're fine kiddo.” He pats her knee clumsily, giddy and punch drunk with a combination of blood loss and no longer feeling himself knit back together at super speed. “Give yourself some time for the shaking to stop and you'll be fine.”

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

They don't bother putting Beth back in the high security cells. Instead, she and Cheyenne sit side by side in the benign section of the greenhouse, sipping silently at oversized mugs of tea as they watch the rest of the team moving around the work space underneath them.

“They should be ready for you any time now.” Cheyenne settles her mug on the counter next to her, half smiling as the heat seeking fern like thing curls one frond down and wraps it around the bottom of the mug.

“Will it work this time?” Beth doesn't look up from where she's staring down into her cup, toes turned in as she fidgets with her handle.

“Tosh reconfigured the casket while we were gone. It'll work around the implant, so no more false images. If we see you go out, you're really out.”

“If we'd been one minute later...” It's the same chorus that's been chasing itself screamingly loud through Cheyenne's brain and she takes a deep breath, pushing herself to her feet.

“We weren't. Come on, it'll be a lot like last time, except you won't wake back up again until we're ready for you.”

“But what happens if the freezing doesn't work? What do you do when you have to stop me? I can feel it coming. It's pushing me out.” She's still perched on the edge of the only bench in the green house, staring down at her alien arm. “What will you do when I lose my last bit of me?

“We'll figure something out, Beth.” A half-hearted promise is the best she can do right now and there's not enough left over in Cheyenne right now to feel too bad about that.

“No, you won't. I'm too dangerous for that, we both know it. I'll stay frozen in there forever. Unless I get out again.” Now Beth looks up at her, gaze steady as Cheyenne stares at her. “I know, about the three of you. It’s in my files.”

The sentence, the threat implied behind it, makes her sick to her stomach even as she tilts her chin up, glaring down the bridge of her nose at Beth, hunched over and given up and still so much of a danger.

“So what?”

“So have you ever hurt them? Not just a fight, but have you ever really hurt either of them?” Ianto strolls by, some kind of ridiculous antenna on his shoulder, and the corner of her mouth tips up as he looks upwards at her and winks.

“Not yet, not like you mean, but I was married before. I hurt him; more times than I should have.” Beth nods, lacing her fingers together as the two of them continue to look at each other.

“Remember how guilty you felt?” She nods slowly, because she can still see the expression on James' face if she tries. He's leaving her slowly, some days she can't remember the exact way he smiled when she opened her eyes Christmas morning to see Beelz chewing his way through the wrapped puppy presents under the tree or the satisfied tilt of his brow after he signed his name to the last piece of paperwork on a long case, but every time she hurt him deeply; those expressions have yet to fade. “Imagine that...times a billion. All the time. Every second of the day. That's how I feel now. And the worst part is, when I turn back, I won't feel guilty anymore.” And here, for the first time, she and Beth understand each other completely. “I'll want to carry out my mission. I won't even care about Mike. I'll forget all about him. I don't wanna die as one of those things. I don't wanna forget about Mike.”

“I know you don't Beth. We'll try, and if we can't figure it out...we won't let that happen to you.”

“Thanks, but I think this is probably safer. I'm sorry. I just...I can't think of any other way.” The woman lets her cup fall to the floor, spilling tea across the cement as she stalks across the floor towards Cheyenne, arm twisting into a sword as she points it forward.

“Beth...Beth, you don't have to do this.” She so close to the greenhouse door, is fumbling behind her back for the knob when the younger woman rushes her. Beth's hand trembles as she grabs Cheyenne, slinging that bladed arm around the smaller woman's throat and shoving them both out onto the catwalk into plain sight of everyone below.

“Yes I do.” It's the utter flatness in her voice that frightens Cheyenne the most, staring down at where everyone has come running from every different direction, guns drawn from every angle. “I won't let you freeze me!” She's shouting as loud as she can and Cheyenne wonders if they can hear the fear in Beth's voice as the woman moves further out into their lines of sight. “I'll kill you all!”

“Beth, this is not the way you want to die.” She's speaking softly, trying to soothe the frightened, dangerous person behind her, even as down below they start screaming for Beth to let her go.

“Move away from her now!” Tosh has a little Beretta pointed up at them and it's not much more reassuring than having an almost perfect replica of the sword that impaled Jack just hours ago just inches from her throat.

“Everybody, calm down!” Jack's voice echoes through the main floor as he begins edging towards them from the lower catwalk, gun held steady as he sidles towards them. Below she can see Ianto moving left, the two of them spreading out to find the best shot. “Beth...Beth, you don't want to do this. Let her go.”

“I'll kill her! I'll kill her first, then all of you, then the rest of your miserable species!” There's relief as much as tears in Beth's voice as it breaks on her shout and from the corner of her eye Cheyenne sees Ianto thumb the safety off, eyes cold and narrow as he squares his shoulders.

“Beth, please! They will kill you. You helped us to stop the invasion. You're a hero, not a monster. Please, Beth! You're not your fears, you're human!” For a second the young woman falters and Cheyenne wonders how differently this would be going if Gwen were here to say what Beth needed to hear. She wonders if they'd still be trapped in this no-win stand-off if the one person who would have made Beth that one hopeful promise from the start had been here to say it.

“Not human enough.” The sword arm squeezes her close as Beth hugs her, clinging tight and trembling for one long second before swinging her sword arm wide, exposing as much of her body as she can. “Goodbye.”

She's holding perfectly still, braced for bullets to fly around her, but not for the entire grated scaffolding they're standing on to shake as something falls heavily onto it from behind. Behind her Beth makes one high-pitched and wet choking sound before something hot and wet splashes suddenly across the side of Cheyenne's face. On the floor no one has lowered their guns and off to the left Ianto looks positively murderous as Chy cuts her eyes to the right to focus on the blood slick length of razor sharp metal protruding out through the front of Beth's throat as she twitches on the end. Her arm has already begun melting back to its human shape as Cheyenne lurches forward away from the peacefully smiling corpse staring at her.

There's blood on her face. Beth's blood is on her face. She's pawing at it, smearing it across her eye, dragging thick black streaks of eyeliner through it when she stumbles, heel snagged on the edge of the grating the way Ianto's always trying to convince her will happen. Her arms pinwheel, flailing to keep her balance and a long arm reaches out, a man's broad hand splayed around her waist as she's tugged firmly against an unfamiliar body.

"Let her go and put the sword down before I blow your head off!" Ianto is livid, voice snarlingly low as she blinks through the already stiffening mess coating her right lashes.

"Well that's a fine thanks. No, really Eye candy, don't strain yourself." She doesn't recognize the voice behind her, but he sounds British in the same way Jack sounds American; it’s so close to being right, but not quite.

"Ianto." Jack's voice is hard in that way he only uses at work when he expects their obedience and Ianto doesn't look away from the man on the catwalk behind her. He doesn't lower his gun and Cheyenne's not sure if she's been rescued or if she's gone from being the fake hostage of a suicide to being the real hostage of someone she still hasn't seen.

"Look, you prick." Owen's mouth is pressed together into a tight line when he's not speaking and it's not reassuring that he sounds as unimpressed as Ianto looks. The doctor steps up even with Ianto and his weapon hasn't wavered. "You shot me the last time you were here and I've really wanted to shoot you back for months now."

"I have had it!" Her voice is shrill as Cheyenne lifts her hands, shoving her hair back out of her face. "Who the fuck has me? Am I a fucking hostage?"

"Of course you aren't, luv." The blood covered blade that's stayed in the corner of her eyesight drops with a ringing clatter but she isn't released as the wiry arms keep her pinned against him, covering the mystery man's center mass as he works first one arm and then the next out of a bright red frock coat, tossing it over the railing floor at Jack's feet. "You're just an...Encouragement for the rest of your team to not shoot me until I have a chance to talk to your boss."

"Yeah, that's kind of like being a hostage.” And she is over it. Officially. She is done having life threatening experiences for the day. Her voice is high, but hard and she knows her mouth is pulled back in a snarl that's as much hate as it is fear.

"Last warning! One! Two!" Ianto looks perfectly thrilled by the thought that he might get a chance to say 'Three' and behind her the man holding her growls in disgust. The arm around her waist disappears and the walkway under her feet shudders again as the man presumably drops to his knees from the quick downward tracking Ianto's barrel does. Cheyenne steps away quickly, turning and staring down at the man kneeling on the grating, his hands in the air before threading his fingers together behind his skull.

"Fine, then I surrender or whatever it is you're expecting me to do." There are cuffs on her holster and she takes them off, locking them in place. The man grinning salaciously up at her is gorgeous, cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass under wolf blue eyes and heavy expressive brows. His full mouth curves up as she yanks the worn black tee up far enough frisk across the skin tight black second skin underneath it, crouching down to run her small hands along the lines of his folded legs. "So, you're new.” He croons flirtily at her, spreading his legs further than necessary and tilting his pelvis as she slides her palms up the inside of his thighs. “You have fantastic hands sweetheart, did anyone ever tell you that?"

"Everything about me is fantastic." She ignores the flush that creeps up her cheeks as he winks at her. "He's still armed Jack."

"I know.” At the foot of the ladder, one level down, Jack is waiting with his arms crossed. “Come on down, John. No sudden movements; apparently you've inspired a case of trigger happiness in my team."

"You know me lover, I'm just an allover inspirational kind of bloke." It's the exasperated familiarity in Jack's voice that makes the connection between the man throwing fuck me grins at their lover and everyone else. She can feel the corner of her eye begin to tick.

"Ah. So you're the actually evil ex-boyfriend?" She stands back and watches the man rise to his feet smoothly with his arms locked behind himself. "No wonder you've got all the bullets aimed your way.”

"What can I say sweetheart, I'm polarizing." At her feet Beth's body stares up at her as Cheyenne steps over the corpse, gun drawn and pressed into the small of the man's back.

“Yeah, I'm getting that impression and I don't think I care right now.” She marches him to the edge of the ladder and before she can hesitate over whether or not to cuff his hands in front of him, the man has stepped carelessly off, dropping eight feet down and landing lightly on his feet in front of Jack. “He'd better be here to try and fuck you Jack, because I have run out of Shits to Give today.” Jack looks up at her, mouth tilted up in a smirk that melts away under the weight of her glare. “I'm serious. Tell your ex that I don't care if the Sun is freezing, Mars has turned green, or he's come from the future to tell me how LOST ends because I also ran out of Rat's Asses and Flying Fucks about two hours ago. I'm going to go wash Beth's blood out of my eyes before I come to my senses and fucking quit this bullshit job of yours and go home where the support staff stays support staff!” She's shaking as she turns her back and marches around the far side of the catwalk, stomping her way down the far spiral stairs. She has to pass under Beth's body and she stares up at the twisted form bleeding down through the grate before taking a deep breath and kicking her now scuffed heels off, leaping across the growing puddle of blood between her and the stairs to the shower. The edge of her heel catches the cooling red puddle and she shudders in rage and disgust, losing the battle against tears that she's been fighting for hours to stomp, choking back sobs the entire way, down three flights of stairs, slamming every door she puts her hands on as she tries and fails to catch her breath.

Cheyenne Morgan is not a hero. She's never wanted to be a hero before, and she wishes, not for the first time, that she didn't know a single soul who is one.

The white silk blouse she started the day in is far beyond salvageable and she yanks roughly at it, scattering small opalescent buttons across the tile floor as she rips it open, throwing it in a wadded ball across the locker room to fall far short of the open trash barrel with Ianto's neatly penned sign proclaiming it as the Rags and Burn bin. Even if Jack's blood could lift out cleanly almost two hours after it dried in, stiffening the threads to a rusty brown, she has no idea if Beth's blood stains the same way a human's does. The red plazzo pants she just steps out of halfway across the room, leaving them in a grass and bloodstained crumple on the off chance that her magically awesome laundry capable boyfriend can possibly save the linen and she sheds her lingerie the same careless way as she storms her way into the first dry shower stall and turns the water on as hard and hot as she can stand it. The water stings, beating down on her face as she tips it up into the spray, scrubbing furiously at her skin and hairline until all the water runs clean. The blood is gone, swirled away down the drain and Cheyenne lets herself slide down to the ground, sitting under the driving spray until the water turns off and her favorite oversized orange bath towel is dropped over her shoulders.

“Phones have been rerouted through a couple other cities and cell service has been restored. Rhiannon called the second she had a connection to tell us that Indiana is fine and check on us. I told her we had everything under control and we were okay.” Ianto reaches down, brushing her wet bangs away from her puffy face. “Are you okay?”

“I'm really bad at this job.”

“You're great at your job.”

“I yelled at Jack.” Ianto snorts in amusement, continuing to smooth her hair into some semblance of shape and out of her face.

“Jack's a big boy. He'll survive it.”

“Poor Beth. Did you..?”

“She's with Owen now. Come on.” She lets Ianto slide his hands under her elbow, levering her up onto her feet and wrapping the bright orange terrycloth closer around her. “I brought you some clean clothes.” The locker room floor's been picked up, her ruined clothes out of sight in the barrel and the pale pink strap of her bra dangling from the edge of the communal laundry basket. Obviously she looks like a wreck since he's skipped past several options in actual day wear to set out her favorite pale green leggings with his black and white sweater, the same one she wore the day he brought her back from the hospital the week they first met. He's even remembered to dig her spare fuzzy socks from the back corner of her bottom desk drawer and she pulls them on, staring down at her feet, where each toe is encased in alternating black and white.

“I don't...I'm the only one acting like this, Ianto. I need to just get my shit together like the rest of you and I can't. I'm still scared and it pisses me off!” He cups the back of her skull in his palm, guiding her face to the curve of his throat.

“You may have noticed this in the year or so you've known them, but none of the people up there are quite right.” It's the dry self-depreciation in his voice that makes her snicker and he seems far more ready for it than she is when she bursts back into tears.

“You didn't tell me it was awful like that.”

“Yes, well I've never fought off a four man invasion force racing for our own nuclear weapons before. Next time it happens...”

“Jack!” The teasing exasperation in his voice is gone now as he strokes her back through the cotton. “You didn't tell me that about Jack. That he...”

“Heals faster than he can die sometimes?” She shudders, scrubbing her hands over her face. “I don't know, I just...would you want to talk about it, now that you've seen it?”

“Oh God no.” She presses her face harder against the ridge of his collarbone until the darkness behind her eyes flashes with sparks of yellow and red. “I don't want to think about it. I didn't...I didn't want to touch him for a second there. It was just Jack and he was hurt, there was an alien sword-arm sticking out of his chest and it's like my entire body was screaming 'Don’t touch him, it's a trap! Run!' I just...I didn't think it was like that.”

“Why would you?” He shrugs, patting her back firmly which she decided to take as a sign to take a deep breath and get her shit together. “Do what I do; don't think about it.” His face is very serious despite the flippancy of the remark when she pulls back to meet his eyes. “I mean it Cheyenne, don't think too hard about it because if you think too hard about what happens to Jack, it'll make your skin crawl and break your heart at the same time.” And because she knows exactly what Ianto is talking about in a way she thinks only someone who loves Jack Harkness can, she pushes it away; wrapping her hair up in the towel around her shoulders and wiggling into the clothes Ianto hands her one at a time.

“So.” She yanks the sweater over her head and watches his eyes darken with approval, possessive thing that her boy is, as he sees her in only his clothes. “You made Jack's ex seem a lot eviler than he was.” Ianto's brows crumple down into a glower as he looks upwards, as if he can see through the floors between themselves and the two Time Agents.

“He is eviler than that. He's up to something.” He's bristled up with a dark rage Cheyenne hasn't seen from Ianto since she met him and she drops the leggings back onto the bench, straddling his lap so that he’s looking up at her instead. He takes a deep breath and sighs as she begins running her fingers through his hair, scowl melting away as he tips his head forward and rests his cheek against her breasts as she rubs his scalp gently.

“Well if he is, Jack won't let him get away with it.”


	9. Chapter 9

John flirts and laughs his way through every body-scan, and x-ray Jack runs. He turns his strip search into a strip tease, shedding weapons and clothes in a series of shimmies and hip rolls too loosely strung together to be a dance and too closely connected to not be. Tosh carefully gathers them all up, face flushing darker with every discarded item Jack inspects and then slides across the floor to her. John’s still as pale and wiry as Jack remembers as he swaggers over to the examination table and folds his arms high behind his back, legs shoulder width apart as he bends at the waist and presses his chest flat to the paper covered surface.

“You’ve missed three. Have fun finding them; I know I’ll enjoy myself just fine.”

“Right, fuck me if I’m going to stand here and watch him getting off on his cavity search.” Owen throws his hands in the air before yanking the evidence bins full of edged, poisoned, and temporally noncompliant weapons into his arms and heading for the door.

“I might also be smuggling undeclared fruit.” John purrs, chuckling low in his chest as Owen stops halfway out of the door and spins on his heel, marching back across the floor and grabbing Tosh by the bicep.

“Come on.” He can’t see what John does, but Tosh’s eyes darken a bit and Owen’s lip curls back scornfully as he hustles the technician out in front of him.

“Okay, you’ve had your fun.” He moves around to the front of the exam table, tapping the other man’s chin upwards with gloved fingers “Now open up.” There’s a sonic lockpick in the back of the other man’s throat, a small plasma cutter the size of a razorblade hidden in his hair, and Jack makes sure to double check every other inch before ignoring the other Agent’s smug grin when he turns up empty handed.

“I don’t suppose you just want to hand it over?”

“I thought we agreed this was the best part of being held prisoner?” And because they did agree, decades ago in Jack’s case, he laughs despite himself and grabs a tube of the clear ultrasound jelly from the drawer and begins slicking up his gloved hand.

“So, you just woke up today and thought, ‘I think I’ll go see if Jack was serious about arresting me if I ever show up in his time zone again?’ Because, I was serious.” The other agent just hums low in his throat, rolling his hips back as Jack slips two slick fingers inside his old partner, fingertips sliding carefully along as he feels for a long slim barrel first.

“So you’re really sticking with Jack?” John quips back, ignoring the question completely. “Because it’s kind of weird, isn’t it? Sharp, plain, and boring.”

“I’ve been Jack about a hundred years longer than I’ve ever been anyone else. It’ll do for now.” Under him John grunts low in surprise as Jack presses in further, fingers spreading as he begins tapping fingertips against the muscles gripping down at him, looking for anything that might be artificial. “Ease up.”

“And let you take all the fun out of this? Stop being lazy, Agent. Put some effort in.” Jack’s pretty sure, about a minute and a half before he actually stops searching the other man, that John’s lying about concealing a third weapon but he’s not in the mood to find out he was wrong later down the road.

“Oh God, that’s like half your hand!” Owen comes through the door and promptly turns on his heel, eyes screwed shut. “You’re a pinky and a thumb away from wearing him like a puppet! What do you think he has in there?”

“Nothing now.” He ignores John’s gravel voiced complaints that he’s a cocktease, sliding his fingers free and tossing the latex glove into the bin. “How can I help you Owen?”

“I don’t know, I knew before I walked in on that. Why do so many so the things I’ll never unsee involve you?”

“Because you’re lucky I suppose. Did it involve the clothes you’re holding like a shield for your tattered virtue?” Owen’s head tilts as he looks down at the dark red scrubs he has in his hands before chucking them over his shoulder roughly in Jack’s direction.

“Shut up.” He snatches them out of the air as Owen speaks. “Your burglar is ready to be released into city custody and Beth is locked down in the alien morgue on quarantine until tomorrow. Is he smuggling more bombs-as-diamonds in his ass or can I go home and finish my bloody vacation? It’s only noon, I can get another twelve hours of drunken debauchery in before I have to start sobering up.”

“Not sure yet. Stand down for an hour while I find out.”

“Damn it.” The door slams behind the doctor as he leaves the private room off to the side of the interrogation room.

“So, are you going to hand it over or am I going to have to take it?”

“Oh, good luck with that.” Jack didn’t bother wondering before why John had added gloves to his ensemble since the last time but it’s obvious as soon as the older agent moves the protective hand he’s had covering the slimmer strap of his wrist strap. The skin under and around it is twisted and ruined; pitted and ridged like half melted wax. It goes down a good half inch below the bottom strap and creeps up the back of John’s hand and up the side of the thumb and the edges of the wrist band seem to bleed and melt right into the twisted flesh. “Two jobs back I run into a warlord who’s become a ‘God’, you know, one-oh-one stuff.” Would-be Gods on primitive planets are a Time Agent’s bread and butter, the kind of everyday case that makes up the vast majority of regular busts. For every ten they find, seven are stranded by accident and gladly trade in their deification for a ride back home but the other three…well that thirty percent are what makes the job fun. “Except that this one is wearing an Arkadian uniform and has somehow escaped not just the erasure of Kastorobous but has managed to bring enough war spoils with him to disrupt the lines around the entire system. It was a job for a full band.”

“And you went in solo?”

“Hey, I’m the pretty one, you’re the smart one. Anyway, he thought having a Time Agent was better than just having a vortex manipulator, so he threw together a collar and leash; couple of recall circuits, a detonator, a little molecular bonding; caught me sleeping on the job I guess because here we are.” John straightens gracefully, slipping on the loose cotton Jack hands him and knotting the drawstrings just enough for the scrub bottoms to barely grip his hips. He flexes his hand and Jack watches the tendons move under the skin. “Idiot synced the self-destruct to his heartbeat. Like I didn’t know a hundred ways to make his heart beat long past when he wished he’d die and then keep it beating once the rest of him was gone.” John’s long fingers trace one of the spaces where he and his wrist strap are fused together. “Besides, I was just being polite long enough to get the warm welcome.” He winks at Jack. “You’re not getting my strap regardless, because I’m here on the job.”

“What job?”

“One you should have noticed yourself by now.” All the fun and games are gone from the senior Agent’s voice and the disapproval there instead makes Jack bristle.

“Oh, right, let me go ahead and pull up my holo-link from the desk unit I can’t even build yet so I can connect to the station that’s hunting me to get the newest updates on the primes, parallels, and alters for this constantly unstable time zone and I’ll start running them against all the data my broken vortex manipulator can’t collect.”

“Excuses.” John ignores the shirt Jack’s holding out, fingers flicking and swiping the air as he accesses the Agent only menus Jack lost access to with his vortex manipulator’s first burn out. He aims the pale blue light from the back of his cover at Jack and the immortal man grits his teeth and lets it sweep him from head to toe. It flashes mauve immediately, he is an anomalous temporal presence, and then stays that way instead of changing to any of the colors it’s supposed to. John scowls, fingers flicking the air roughly to cue the scan sequence up again, before finally defaulting to keying in the sequence manually when the light continues to strobe mauve around Jack.

“Fuck me, how’d it get broken?”

“It’s not broken.” The senior agent glowers at him, fingers striking the keys roughly when he tips his face back down.

“Well it’s broken or you are.”

“You’re hardly the first person to accuse me of being damaged.” John’s brows are still furrowed as he looks down at his strap that is obviously giving him otherwise correct information and then back up at Jack.

“We’ll come back to you. Get your team, line ‘em up.”

“No.” John’s brow creeps slowly upwards incredulously as he and Jack stare at each other across the floor.

“Look, last time I owed you one because of the whole bomb thing, so I let you stay here to play hero because this is a high risk zone that could use a permanent eye, but since you’re too busy playing and not busy enough doing your sworn duty, someone else has to. So you can act like a native, and I’ll treat you like one, or you can be one of Time’s finest and assemble your merry men. Now, Agent.” The air between them is thick with tension as Jack thumbs his com open onto the intercom system.

“I need everyone in the conference room as soon as possible.” His voice echoes across the speakers on each level and the senior agent nods approvingly.

“There. Not so hard, was it?”

“Get dressed,” He tosses his chin in the direction of the evidence bins where John’s under armor and clothes are. “Let’s get this over with.”

His team reacts exactly the way he expects them to when John Hart follows him into the room, wearing his own clothes and unrestrained. Guns clear holsters impressively fast and the coldly apologetic looks they give him say that they’ll be very sorry about shooting through Jack to get the other man, but they’ll try to make it up to him when he comes back.

“Stand down!”

“I’m not here to play with you lot today, so I suggest following orders and making this easy on all of us. Line up, keep at least two feet between each of you.”

“Better idea,” Owen says cheerfully. “We shoot you and go home.” John’s eyes narrow is annoyance as he looks dismissively at the weapons all pointed his way and then at Jack.

“Control your band or I’ll do it myself.” It’s the last warning the other Agent is going to give them and Jack grits his teeth, stepping squarely between his team and his former partner, arms held out to the side.

“You’re each going to get scanned one at a time for anomalies in your timeline. It only takes a minute, watch.” He crooks his fingers in John’s direction and the older Agent growls under his breath.

“And should I turn on the children’s holo cues too in case they get bored?” At least he’s already got his manipulator up and ready, white light sweeping across Jack and once again strobes mauve immediately. “There. It’s easy.”

“I’m not worried it’s hard, I’m worried that Laughing Boy there is going to zap us somewhere into deep space to get our eyes sucked out of our heads for spite,” Owen growls, gun unwavering.

“If I wanted to do that, I would have done it yesterday when I first started working my case and no one knew I was here.” The Time Agent grins aggressively, vortex manipulator still held out in Jack’s direction. “Now, who’s first?”

“I am.” Toshiko barely lowers her gun, dropping her aim down towards John’s center. “Anything funny and I put a bullet through your intestines.”

“I love how feisty this one is today. She’s my new favorite.” Tosh isn’t particularly impressed by the honor, finger resting ready on the trigger as the white beam forms in the air over her head and sweeps downwards at a flick of John’s fingers. Jack watches with breath held as the light touches a strand of her hair and begins to strobe quickly. His shoulders slump in relief as the light mostly flickers back and forth between green and blue, occasionally flashing darkly red before flickering black and shutting off. “There we go. Very impressive numbers by the way.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” She steps away from John, gun still aimed as she backs towards the rest of the team. It’s easy to see the bright curiosity in her eyes, but even that is overshadowed by their shared distrust.

“Oh, don’t be like that. I’m occasionally a great guy. Who’s next?” Jack watches as Ianto and Cheyenne shoot each other loaded glances and Owen ignores their silent conversation next to him to shove himself out past the two of them and into the center of the floor almost even with Jack.

“Just do it.” Owen’s scan is just as blessedly benign as Tosh’s, greens and blue sparking out from him in equal, plentiful measure. John lifts an eyebrow, nodding approvingly as it flickers black and then off with what the other agent obviously considers an impressive dearth of crimson.

“Good job with them.”

“They do it themselves.”

“Both of you can bite me.” Owen stomps back and Ianto is already stepping forward when John raises his hand, stopping the boy in his tracks to look at Jack.

“You know better. You can come back for hers.”

“No I can’t.” And he does know better, it’s not like he’s ever attempted to read their timelines even though he probably could restore that function with minimal fuss now that technology has advanced a little further, but knowing he shouldn’t do it himself and not watching someone else run a timeline screening are two very different animals. Over by the table Ianto and Cheyenne are staring at him in confused disapproval as he turns his back and heads for the door.

“Hey! Where the hell are you going?” Owen is far from impressed with Jack from the tone in his voice. “What’s he actually doing?”

“He’s doing his job as a Time Agent.”

It’s a cold comfort to know as he shuts the door behind himself and forces himself to walk all the way to his office before he looks over his shoulder in through the glass wall. He’s at the wrong angle to catch so much as a glimpse of colored lights and settles down at his desk to do something somewhat productive instead.

“They’re both clean.” John’s voice startles him away from the piles of paperwork he’s been forcing himself through. “Although you might want to watch your boy, he potentially makes very bad decisions on his own.”

“But for very good reasons.” His shoulders sink as Jack relaxes for the first time since John began scanning all of them for timeline disruptions.

“You're not actually mad at me, are you?” John's lounging in the door when Jack actually looks up, slumped so that Jack can see the pale flash of blaster scared skin where a plasma shot came a little too close when they were so much younger. The skin there is visibly rougher and Jack isn’t surprised to realize he still remembers exactly the way it felt under his lips.

“You did try to kill half my staff last time you were here.” John rolls himself off the doorjamb pelvis first and he still sways as much as he swaggers when he's stalking across the floor; the walk of a born Spacer. The red coat is still somewhere down on the main floor leaving only the Lycra like shine of the silk thin body armor clinging to John's torso.

“Two of them is a third, not a half, lover. Your maths seem to have gotten a bit...stupid.” He laughs and Jack laughs with him because it's hard not to when John's sprawling himself wide and cheerful in the visitor's chair on the other side of the desk, head tipped back and eyes crinkled up at the edges just a bit and his team is no longer even potentially considered a threat.

“No. You can't kill me and Cheyenne didn't come on board until about a month after you left town. Two out of four is half my team.”

“You still can't count it because you and I know both know I was really just trying to keep them busy and out from under foot. If I were ever trying to kill your team you never would have seen me coming.” Which is true enough that Jack finishes relaxing back into his chair with a grin. John throws one leg up over the arm of his seat and cocks a brow at Jack. “Well, are you going to pour me a drink or do I have to risk the wrath of that mean little pretty boy of yours to get a couple vodkas in me?” Jack grins and shoves back from his desk, crossing the floor to the decanter set arranged on the sideboard against the wall.

“I'd suggest not annoying Ianto. He's got a tendency towards meanness that he's never particularly sorry about afterward. Do you still take a double over five pieces of ice?” Behind him the other man's chuckle is delighted.

“You remember that? Hell of a memory for a man of your age.” He's silent when he moves, looming from nowhere to press his body against Jack's as the immortal pours the liquor into a highball glass. His chin presses sharply into the dip of Jack's clavicle, long fingers wrapping around Jack's as he lifts the glass over Jack’s shoulder with both their hands, sipping at it. “I hopped around a bit, keeping an eye out for you after that neat little trick of yours with the building, trying to find where you crashed. A hundred and forty years is a long time to remember how your old partner takes his drink. You make me feel like a special little snowflake.”

“You're an idiot.” There's nothing surprising about Johns' hand when it slides across the rippled lines of his stomach, pressing the two of them tightly together as the other man continues to drink over his shoulder. John's voice rumbles in his chest as he makes a sound in a sub-vocal language that implies something Jack can't quite remember about how his parents should have eaten him at birth because he's not smart enough to do something about adding to some weird form of hive mind and something else involving a much formalized type of non-sexual prostitution. The subtleties are lost on him almost two hundred years after the last time he heard the language. “I have no idea what you just said, but I do remember that I should be insulted.”

“Yes, you should. On your mother's behalf if not your own.” Jack tries to smile and can't quite make himself as he looks down at the empty Hub floor, and then through the glass at his team settled together in the conference room, huddled down against the outsider. Jack tries not to think about how easy it is to go from 'one of them' to an 'outsider'.

“I didn't come back to join your team, or because I missed you Jack. I'm here because whatever you've been doing isn't good enough Agent.” John has thrown his glove back on, hiding the burns that fused his vortex manipulator to his wrist, but Jack can see a glimpse of the twisted scars as John flips back the protective cover and the vortex manipulator on his wrist flickers to life smoothly, responding to sub-muscular cues in a way Jack's doesn't anymore. The holo that appears doesn't gutter or flicker, just floats smoothly in the air between them and the glass wall and Jack makes himself look at the sparkling swirling eddies of time lines converging in on Earth in a rapidly tightening spiral. His throat tightens as his eyes skip back and forth in dismay. “Look at this Jack, there are no less than six hundred dangerously disruptive alter-lines converging on Earth. Six hundred on Pre-colonization Earth! It's becoming a sink hole.”

“I know.” And what a relief, to not be the only one who knows how close the course of human history is to tipping irreversibly off its set course. What a nightmare to see how close it actually is. “I couldn’t see it, but I know. And I run my staff to their deaths trying to fix it, but I can't get a read on the nexus point of it and I have to stay directly out of as many of the lesser lines as I can, leave some room for others to come behind me and fix what I miss because I can't catch them all myself and anything I involve myself too deeply in becomes static.” John gives him a long look through the glass’s reflection and Jack grabs the other man’s wrists, tipping the glass up to his own lips. “I've got it on good authority that I'm the missing principal in Xvicotial's theory of temporal relativity.”

“You're not a fixed point, you melodramatic baby.” Now John pulls away from him far enough to shove him mockingly. “Living with the natives driven you a bit crazy? The best of them on this dirt ball aren’t a quarter as good as the worst of us and you're going to let them scare you into thinking you're the unwritten constant?”

“Of course not, but I do trust the one who told me to know what he’s talking about.” He turns and walks away from John, settling his hip against the edge of his desk and stares at the other man, looking for the tells he used to know so well. “Tell me again; swear it on your manipulator that we're what's left.”

“There’s just a couple of us, kid. Things started happening back at the station…I don't know what. I was on a solo run; someone interfered with the Lux Corp Slaughter on The Library, turning it into the Lux Corp Rescue, but three of the survivors needed to be re-neutralized. I tracked them down and repaired the potential damage but by the time I got back, Sabbath had gone insane and declared that all the Parallels were actually Alters weakening the Prime.”

“He what?” It's worse by far than he could have imagined.

“He sent them all out in suicide waves that were erasing every other shade of reality out of the universe. The ones he didn't send to their own deaths he must have killed himself. At some point during it all, someone opened the Schrodinger Cells. By the time I got back the Clock Work people had taken the station but the Paradox factions were attacking it...so I blew it out of the vortex into a thousand different time zones in a hundred different realities before either of them got in too far. We're it. The might of the Time Agency; a thousand Eon class warships, the Melded Schism...all of it's gone.” John sighs and drains his tumbler. “Me and you, Carter's tesselecta team, Xei-xvi and her other thirds, maybe Kebbie survived...hen's good at that, but if you're been secretly waiting for me to call in the Calvary then whoop-de-fucking-do, here it is.” John flings his arms out to the side.

“John, a TimeLord survived the purge of Gallifrey from the time streams. That's who told me.” It's kind of satisfying to watch the other man go whey pale, sinking down into the chair behind himself without looking and scrambling to right it and himself as he almost tips them both to the floor.

“You fucking lie. A Time...A Timelord? Fuck kid, those things were crazy.” For a moment Jack hears a faint four/four beat throbbing in his skull and tightens his grip on the edge of his desk until it fades. John's staring up at him out of ice pale eyes, coming out of the chair to wrap his wide rough hand around the nape of Jack's neck, pressing their foreheads together. His thumb caresses the hollow of Jack's temple and Jack's never rated much higher than an Iota on the Imperial Scale of Telepathy and Kinesis and his shields are better than they've ever been, but John slides right through them like Jack's still seventeen and green. He's never been psychic enough for actual communication, but it's enough that he can receive; enough to make him 'lucky'. It's enough to let John in. He sweeps his mind clear, thoughts locked down behind steel barriers that the Master tore through like tissue paper and that John never goes near. Instead his presence is just solidly there, like a large cat rubbing itself against the inside of his skull before the senior agent slides back away into his own skull. “You're a patchwork in there kiddo. Scars everywhere. You need a good Imperial class therapist all to yourself.”

“Sure, I'll just wait for one to show up.” The corner of his mouth turns up in a bitter smirk. “I've got time.”

“Well, that's settled then.” John steps back and pulls up the timeline map one more time, watching the glowing web spiral unnaturally around in tightening circles before snapping the cover shut. “I'd feel more comfortable if the Xei-xevi's were here, they were always a bright girl when it came to knowing when a Parallel was teetering on the brink of an Alteration, but you and I have always been good enough to get the job done before. We’ll prioritize the lines, start hunting down this nexus…it might take a couple of years, but we'll get this sinkhole cluster fuck of yours hammered out. I won't even enact temporal domain and take over your operation yet.” Jack snorts, blowing his hair out of his eyes with a huff.

“Yeah, good luck with that.” He gets up and pours them each a fresh glass.

“We’re not bringing your day camp in on this.” Jack pauses mid-pour, surprisingly stung by the slight against his team.

“My team handles things that would make a seasoned agent pause.” He sets the glass down hard, splashing vodka over the rim.

“With a clueless smile on each of their adoring little faces because they don’t know what you’re pitting them against.” The leather of his gloves creaks as John tilts his glass to his lips. “It’s not bravery if you don’t know you’re in danger.”

“I’m not sure what you think we do here…”

“As a race, they're superstitious, selfish, violent children who are still scared of their own reflections and they're xenophobic on such an instinctual level that it registers as part of the planet's morphic field.”

“John, there have been times I've been holding events on track by the skin of my teeth and the hair on my ass while this entire shadow military that I never studied keeps trying to knock the course of human history off the rails with only my teams as back-up. I have to build the most stripped down, simplest version of kit I can, by myself, out of salvage and scrap and fucking tin cans and string because even the best of my techs are only now starting to understand the fundamentals of what I need them to know and it's faster to do it myself then try to teach them temporal engineering, but they always surprise me when they pick up enough to help out a bit. I constantly ask them to do a Time Agent's work when I know they aren't Time Agents, and treating them like they are is the quickest way to kill them John, but I do it anyway. And they trust me because I was the immortal man from the stars in a time when we lit this entire place with oil lamps. The best of my kids worked under me for fifteen years before she died. Most of them make it seven.” Jack's voice trails off as he takes a deep breath. “They do things for me without hesitation that all my squads, platoons, and bands never would have done because they don't know the terrible deaths I'm sending them to. They follow me until they die, or go mad, unless I wipe their memories and send them far away. Don’t dismiss them like that.”

“Fine then. Your crime solving kiddies are regular Junior Agents in Training.” He’s tempted to take the other man’s drink, something John recognizes as he picks up his tumbler and drains it in one long gulp. “So, you’re stealing memories now? That's some pretty heavy hypocrisy lover.”

“Yeah, well I used to just let them go but every one of them killed themselves in ten years or less. Too many of them took other people with them when they did it. A full half of my Retconned staff dies of old age, and the ones who don't, well I went from a one hundred percent suicide rate to twenty and I'll take it. That’s not bad, not when you see what they see. I'm willing to be a hypocrite for that.”

“Fair enough.” John crosses his legs at the ankles far in front of him, watching the light glint off the empty cut crystal. “But that doesn’t change my mind. Tell them whatever you want; the truth, a lie, that I’m the Flare Rider come down to end the sen’dark…”

“They won’t get that reference.”

“Don’t care. If they’re as good as you say maybe I’ll let you start bringing them in for clean ups and cadet work later, when we’re tidying up nit-pick lines, but for these big ones? No.” John has left the holo ‘pinned’ in the air and Jack stands next to it, sipping at his tumbler. He can’t see it on the image right now, the other agent doesn’t have the proper filters on and no reason to think to run them, but Jack’s certain that if he asks John to turn on the filters, at least ten of those ‘big’ lines will have the taint of paradox on them.

To the best of his knowledge, not a single one of his team survived their last brush with the Master’s paradox.

“Okay. I’m going to go send them home, start getting yourself setup. I’m going to need more information than that.” He tosses a dismissive thumb over his shoulder at the holograph as he heads towards the door. “To let you set up an operation here.”

“Good, because if you were willing to go just on that I had a jungle moon to sell you!” John’s carried shout puts a smile on Jack’s face that lasts all the way until he opens the conference room door and the vigorous conversation happening inside stops abruptly.

“There’s a case, but it’s his, not ours.” He says gruffly into the narrow eyed, expectant silence. “You can all go home. Enjoy the next seventeen and a half hours of vacation and remember that I expect you all back here tomorrow morning at nine.”

That’s good enough for Owen. The doctor stands up as soon as the words are out of Jack’s mouth, waves over his shoulder and promptly ducks right out of the door. Tosh just scoots further towards the front of her seat, tucking her hair back behind her ear.

“Are you sure?”

“Well, I’m sure you can go home; the case I’m still verifying.” Toshiko’s mouth is still tipping down into a worried frown, but she still gathers up the paperwork in front of her and taps it neatly into a manila folder.

“Right then, guess I’ll go enjoy the rest of my day.” Her initials and date get scrawled across the front of the folder in blue ink. “See you all in the morning.”

Ianto’s jaw stays clenched tightly until they all watch Tosh disappear down towards the loading docks and parking garage.

“Are we really doing this again? Because I realize you may have missed what happened, being dead on the pavement at the time where you had been pushed off the roof by the shifty fucking cunt in your office right now, so let me remind you; he tried to kill us less than a year ago.”

“Ianto…” He’s not prepared for the mortal man to be stiff with rage, eyes flinty as he swivels the chair he’s sitting in slowly back and forth. He’s got his elbows propped on his spread knees, chin resting on fists clenched so hard their knuckles are white.

“I don’t trust him. I’m pretty sure whatever he’s telling you, planning on telling you, and has already told you is a lie. And if by some freak chance it’s not a lie, tell him to piss off and we’ll do it ourselves.”

“Not this we won’t.” He rocks on his heels, trying not to obsess over the whipping net of danger weaving itself tighter and tighter around his poor adopted home. “This is Time Agency territory, I want you all to stay out of it. Because almost no one else on this planet is remotely qualified for this.”

“What, exactly, are we supposed to be staying out of?” Cheyenne asks, hopping up on the table she was leaning against.

“Okay, stop me if you don’t understand.” Ianto hates it when Jack draws on the glass walls that double as monitors, but he doesn’t feel like going to the closet for the white board when the glass safe markers are so close. “Let’s just pretend I drew in the details and call this Earth.” He scrawls a hasty blue circle on the glass at shoulder height. “Now Earth is the nexus point for all of human history and civilization. It’s the only place in the universe where human life sprang up. But in none-of-your-business-how-many years from now we’re going to head into space for real. No more ring of orbiting trash, no more chucking billion dollar cameras into the void; you all are going to go. You’ll go far, and fast.” He whips a red marker up, throwing streaks of red that he hopes indicate velocity instead of making the Earth look like it’s growing red grass. “Where Humanity will begin interacting with the Universe in all sorts of interesting ways which will then alter the course of history for many other races. Now, we are in what we call the “Prime” universe because we live here and assume that this is the correct one. Other Agents in other Parallels consider their own Universes as Prime.” He really needs more colors of markers for this as he picks up the yellow and begins drawing a loose spiral with only a few rings around the Earth. “These are timelines. They don’t look anything like lines, more like wads of string that are all tangled up in the bottom of the sewing kit, but we’ll draw them as lines because it’s easier. Now these are, specifically, potential time lines. Most of them will go nowhere; the right or wrong decision will be made and they just won’t realize. Some of them hinge on decisions so significant they’ll spawn off their own parallel which is a good thing in moderation. But the rest of the lines are Alternates. They make changes that ripple down the Prime timeline and amplify the further away it gets from the point of change. Some of these net positive gains, so we encourage them while trying to replace, moderate, or eliminate the negative ones.” He wonders if using red and green markers with little color coded plus and minus signs next to the formulas for reading alters is clear enough. “There should only be between ten to thirty lines around a nexus point at any given time. Once you get into triple digits you start seeing warping behavior in the upper dimensions. We call this a sink hole. There are currently, at rough guess, six hundred potentials webbing themselves around Earth right now. It’s may be one of the reasons the Rift behaves the way it does. So all of these extra potential lines need to be trimmed back to keep the course of history correct and the spawn numbers of new parallel at a manageable rate.” He steps back, puts the cap on the purple marker where’s he’s probably gotten a little carried away writing out the formula for moderating a primary timeline and surveys the sprawling illustrated explanation that is probably just a bit technical towards the end. “And that is what needs to be done by professionals.”

Cheyenne is staring at him blankly when he turns around, head tipped to the side as she follows strings of imaginary numbers across the glass with her eyes. Ianto meanwhile is chuckling to himself even as he stands.

“Okay, point made.” At least he sounds amused now as he adjusts his jacket, head shaking back and forth faintly. “This isn’t a Torchwood case and you need trained backup.”

“Do you get any of this? Because I thought I was following along and then he said ‘Parallel Universe’ and I thought ‘Oh, like in Superman’ and in that time he lost me somewhere between trying to read the math problem with alien numbers and the net gains of…something.” Cheyenne asks, sliding off the table to get closer.

“Me too.” The corner of Jack’s mouth tips up as the two of them exchange ‘confusion high-fives’. “So, we probably shouldn’t wait for you before we head down to the shore?” Ianto asks.

“No. I might not make it home at all tonight.”

“Maybe I’ll see if Rhiannon wants us to take her kids too.” Ianto’s already shuffling his plans around in his head, fingers tapping the screen of his phone as he heads for the door, a pile of thin manila folders tucked under his arm. “I’m going to go file these. Meet you at the car?” He asks Cheyenne who’s wandered closer to the written on glass.

“Yeah, I’ll be right there.” Ianto rolls his eyes, Cheyenne is rarely ‘right there’ when she sounds this distracted, and heads out the door still texting.

“Is there something in particular you’re looking at?” She’s got her fingertips hovering just inches above the ink.

“So, this is time-travel math?” Her fingertips brush the top of Xvicotial's second principal, smudging it into something guaranteed to blow any ship that tried to follow it out of the vortex in a million flaming pieces. She looks down at the purple on her hands and then back at the smudged formula.

“Yep.”

“I don’t know why it’s weird that you know this. I mean it used to be your job, right?”

“Right. Come here.” She lets him turn her, taking her by the chin and tipping her head back, searching for so much as a scratch from the alien sword. “You’re okay?”

“She didn’t cut me. She wasn’t going to.”

“Well, I wasn't going to take that chance. Did Owen check you over?”

“I told him I would kick him in the teeth if he started pulling and poking at me after the day I’ve had. He very wisely believed me. You didn’t tell me.”

“What, that sometimes I heal faster than I die?” He shrugs awkwardly under her stare. “It didn’t come up.”

“Horseshit. I can think of a dozen places where it could have fit surprisingly easy into conversations we were already having. It’s not…” Her shoulders heave with the force of her sigh. “It’s not important, I guess. I just…I thought he killed you.”

“And I know you would have dealt with him just fine until UNIT got there.” He flinches back as she slaps his chest in annoyance only to discover that he’s finally finished healing every last bruise and scrape.

“You’re such a dick. Of course I would have dealt with him, probably better than you since I would have shot him in the head and not in the guts for spite.” He briefly considers pointing out that he's pretty sure it's not merely spite when the other person stabs you first. “It’s just, I know you come back. I know you say you’ll always come back, but I don’t…I don’t believe that Jack. I’m scared, every time I hear you died, that there’s a shelf-life on your immortality that's going to catch us all by surprise. And not the good kind where one day you’ll start getting older again, but the shitty kind where Ianto and I keep waiting next to a corpse that doesn’t wake up.”

“Hey.” He cups the back of her head, tugging playfully at her hair until she looks up from where she’s glaring a hole through his stomach. “It doesn’t work like that. Immortal is not a word with a lot of modifiers. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Good, because if you do die on us, Ianto and I will use Torchwood as our own private evil base and become super villains out of spite. We could even get everyone else to join our League of Evil too. Well, maybe not Gwen, but definitely Owen and probably Tosh.” He knows she’s joking, but it’s not as funny as it could be when some days he looks at his clever, resourceful team and is very glad they’re on his side.

“I would be very annoyed by that.”

“Then don’t die. How’s your brand new air-hole?” He changed his shirt in the car, too much experience has taught him not to walk around with clothes that scream ‘I should have and/or did die a gruesome death’, and he undoes the buttons, shrugging out of the overshirt so that Cheyenne can pull up the hem of his tee. Underneath he’s perfectly healed, not so much as a bruise remaining although there are still flecks of dried blood from his hasty wash in the sink down in the bunker.

“Gone.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” She scrapes away some of the dried blood with her nail. “But I need you to be a little less rough with my Captain please. I’m still using him.” Her words trail off into a squeal as he wraps his arms around her waist, lifting Cheyenne off the ground.

“I’m pretty sure I’m my own Captain,” he growls teasingly, nibbling at her throat.

“You have lots of time to be your own Captain,” she murmurs, tilting her head to the side to give him better access. “You’re my Captain right now.”

“Hate to interrupt.” Ianto does sound regretful when he raps his knuckles on the glass. “But we have three little ones at Rhi’s waiting on a trip to the shore.”

“We’ll stop by on the way out of town and bring you some lunch,” Cheyenne promises, sliding down the length of his body. “If it turns out that the evil ex is just planning evil again, call us.”


End file.
